Tracy Chapman Meaning

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Fast Car, composed by Tracy Chapman in 1988, is an contemporary song which has soared through the charts for decades. Chapman sings her emotional and imaginative past life, she tells the story of hoping to escape the place she lives, furthermore to make a better life and the challenges she will have to accomplish. Through out the song, Chapman effectively communicates with her audience Lyrics within the first stanza, describes that finding something better in life is the reason to continue with this journey and find that better life. Lyrics like ‘I want a ticket to anywhere’,’any place is better’ and ‘finally see what it means to be living’ describes her needs to get out of her current town and start a new life. The adverb ‘anywhere’ and ‘anyplace’, allows the audience to imagine of where this place could be. ‘Starting from zero, got nothing to lose’ describes that she is ready to move on, hence not having anything worthwhile, she cannot go anywhere but forward. The third stanza is the main reason she wants to leave town, as she wants a life not like her parents. The stanza is the only verse that does not begin with ‘you got …show more content…

The vast contrast of her hoping for a better life, now her strong view of the situation that she is currently living. Chapman's boyfriend and father have very similar habits, her boyfriend starts following her fathers pathways. Earlier within the song she stated ‘my old man’s got a problem he lives with the bottle’, this synecdoche technique is used as she isn't describing the bottle, describing what is in the bottle. Later on in the relationship, Chapman and her boyfriend have had kids, the lyrics ‘you stay out drinking late at the bar, see more of your friend that you do your kids’, the original dilemma she tried to run away from the beginning, it reinforced her that this is a repetitive cycle that is secretly following

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