Lots of chatter about how much better Paris Jackson looked by covering up her 80 tattoos.
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Honestly I do believe it happens but I don’t think in this case Luke Combs made it more appreciated the Tracey Chapman, just appreciated AGAIN and for a new generation. She won Awards and was appreciated in her time as I remember it.
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I meant by a new generation/demographic. 
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I immediately thought of the Taylor/Kanye incident also. Everyone who wins that award meets the criteria (whether or not it’s a genre of music that we listen to). Hopefully Bey is not defining her whole career on not having won this specific award (yet). If she wins it in the few years, it will be immediately followed by this clip of Jay-Z’s rant, which I think will detract from the merit of her win.
Yes! Have always loved her music. There’s a old video floating around of her performing this song at Wembly stadium, and the crowd going silent. The reverence for this song and for her as an artist has always been there.
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Jay Z and Kanye were best buds at the time, and he and Kanye were complicit in the misogynistic acts of taking credit for her success. To which Taylor responded:
“As the first woman to win album of the year at the Grammys twice, I want to say to all the young women out there: There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame,” said a teary-eyed Swift. “But if you just focus on the work and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, some day when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there and that will be the greatest feeling in the world.”
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Here is the background and videos of her performance at Wembly
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Jon Batiste just shared this gorgeous photo backstage at the Grammys with Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder
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I wish I were as optimistic as you. I agree that exposure to Tracy Chapman is a great thing but the whitewashing of the song erases the message and dilutes its impact. Tracy Chapman singing “Fast Car” is symbolic, Luke Combs singing “Fast Car” is not.
It will be a great thing if all those people who have been introduced to the song via Combs’ fight the systemic racism that keep people in low wage jobs and contributes to addiction, broken homes, and the hopelessness Chapman sings/writes about. And those new listeners might want to brush up on intersectionality too.
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While I agree with you (and am an unashamed card-carrying liberal well versed in anti-racism and intersectionality), I can’t help but think there are plenty of poor white folks with low wage jobs, broken homes, substance addiction, and hopelessness in their families, too. To some, her message of hope and the feeling of driving in a fast car, speeding away from it all, is a universal message. Maybe Luke Combs bringing that to his country music listeners means something? ETA Have you read Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver? A powerful look into that world.
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I haven’t but will add it to my reading list. Thanks for the recommendation.
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Many people don’t care what any song’s lyrics mean, even though they may know the song’s lyrics and sing along with it.
Great points. I went to an inner city high school, extremely racially diverse, and this song was our anthem - white, black, yellow - it was about circumstances, not color.
A top 5 song of all time for me.
Yes, perhaps I should have said “poor folks of any race.” I wonder if most of Luke Combs’ fans are white, I really have no idea about the country music genre. But I think the themes in the song are universal human themes, which is maybe why their performance at the Grammys was so moving. I mean, it doesn’t get more universal than “I had a feeling that I belonged, I had a feeling I could be someone.”
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Still thinking about Sunday’s performances and evidently I am not the only one. Have never tried using a gift link here and hoping I have done it correctly 
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I think it is interesting that Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell are getting more attention than Billy Joel who introduced a new song and closed out the show.
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Maybe b/c Joel didn’t provide nearly the high quality of performance that the others did. 
My .02.
I was a Billy Joel fan, still like him, but it wasn’t a powerful performance or experience to me.
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I agree 100%. I think they expected him to the the star and, to me, it was kind of a let down after the earlier performances.
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I went to high school and was in chorus with Billy Joel (1964-66) and am not impressed with anything he’s done in the past several decades.
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For all the Fast Car duet fans, here’s an informative article of how it came to be. Love it!
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And talking about poor white folks, this author penned this article.
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