Give me one reason to stay here
And I'll turn right back around.

Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk

You've got a fast car

Wasting my precious energy

Someday before Easter comes
And I won't let Jesus find me.

"Fast Car" was a #8 hit for Tracy Chapman in the summer/fall 1988, but was a big seller on more charts than the pop charts. "Fast Car" was also a hit in the album rock, folk, alternative rock and soul charts which was a very unusual and at the time unheard of thing for a record to do -- to make it big in all five of those charts. In many ways, Gnarls Barkley's 2006 hit, "Crazy" owes a debt of gratitude to Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" in that many different audiences would be open to the idea of listening and buying and asking radio stations to play the same song. And it almost didn't happen that way for Tracy Chapman or "Fast Car". Tracy Chapman, who owes a debt of gratitude to Joan Armatrading (a darling of critics in the 1970's and 80's, but never a big seller of records) for the record companies to be open to the idea of allowing a black artists (and especially a black folk artists) such a Tracy and Joan to be able to sell songs and lp's. Elektra records waited a very long time though to release a first lp for Tracy, entitled just, "Tracy Chapman", unsure as to actually how or in which category her songs belonged (they are generally very folk, but with some rock and elements of soul mixed in) to. And Tracy wrote many songs that were on the self-titled 1988 debut as far back as 1982. And at first Elektra had very little faith in "Fast Car", but when first alternative and hard rock stations both started playing the tune it took off from there (as what would happen with Gnarls Barkley's tune in 2006) with pop and then soul and then easy listening stations playing it (it was also one of the earliest pop tunes heard reviewed on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", introducing Tracy Chapman to even more wider audiences) and reached legendary status. "Fast Car" (as well as the whole debut lp) is said to have appealed to a need many felt that much of the citizens of the U.S. and the world had been left behind and to needs in all of us for something more. Tracy Chapman would also win the Best New Artists Grammy for "Fast Car" and CBS-TV went out of their way to promote Tracy Chapman singing the song live on the Grammies that year.