Fast Car

When Luke Combs recorded a country version of "Fast Car" in 2023, it returned Tracy Chapman to the top of the American charts more than three decades after her original. Combs's cover reached number one on both the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, and it won Chapman the Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year, making her the first black person to receive that award.

The song had first been released by Elektra Records on April 6, 1988, as the debut single from Chapman's self-titled album. Her breakthrough came that June at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert, where she had been scheduled to sing three songs. When Stevie Wonder discovered his keyboard's floppy disk had gone missing shortly before his set, he left in a panic and organizers pushed Chapman back onstage with only a microphone and her guitar. She performed "Fast Car" and "Across the Lines" to a huge audience, and sales of Tracy Chapman rose enough for the album to top the Billboard 200 on August 27, 1988. The single reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100 that same week.

Chapman said in a 2010 interview that the song was not directly autobiographical, though it drew on the working-class Cleveland, Ohio community where she grew up watching people struggle and hope for better things. At the 31st Annual Grammy Awards, it won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance among three nominations. In 2011 it entered the UK top ten a second time at number four after Michael Collings sang it on Britain's Got Talent.