A moment of joy as a song and its star reunite

Tracy Chapman is the unhurried river. The currents run deep and at their own pace. As an artist,this is the definition of faith.

Chapman has released eight albums in 36 years,and none since 2008. Perhaps she’s said all she needed to say. Sung all that she needed to sing. Or now the words and music are for herself alone. The art is the reward. An artist,true to themselves,creates only to their expectations,not to the public’s. Otherwise,it’s just advertising.

Tracy Chapman is also a very private person. Being thrust into the spotlight because of the success of her first album and the singles Fast Car andTalkin’ ’Bout a Revolution never sat well on her shoulders. Conquering the world was not the plan,knowing the inner world,much more so,perhaps the guiding light.

She has still done small tours,appeared at events in recent years,but none so nearly mega-hyped as recently when she appeared at the Grammys,performingFast Car with country singer Luke Combs,whose version has taken all before it.

The room rose to applaud her,and many sang the words as if they were a lullaby known from childhood,which may well be the case for many. Taylor Swift was born the year after the song’s release.

Fast Car’s narrative of escape,and searching for something better,is a common theme in music. Where Chapman’s is melancholic,bittersweet,one part hope,the other resignation,there is Bruce Springsteen’sBorn to Run,a headlong,turbocharged drive down the highway. And many others,such as Simon and Garfunkel’sAmerica.

But in the artistic waters of Chapman,there runs faith. It surfaces explicitly in songs such asSave Us All (“I know Jesus loves me/In my heart I know it’s true/I know Mary’s little baby/Came into the world/Just to save me/But I don’t know about you”),which bounces off the 19th-century Christian hymnJesus Loves Me.

And it travels other continents,too,such as in the songHeaven’s Here on Earth (“You can look to the stars in search of the answers/Look for God and life on distant planets/Have your faith in the ever after/While each of us holds inside the map to the labyrinth/And heaven’s here on earth”). The positions don’t cancel each other out. They’re just different rooms in the house.

Chapman is a humanist. She sees in people both sunlight and darkness,salvation,redemption and hope. Above all,hope. As she has sung,she sees nothing of worth in the material world if the soul is traded for that currency. The meeting of the waters,the delta of her faiths,is perhaps best revealed in the title song from her last album,Our Bright Future.

She sings:“To my father what have you done?/To the children/Born innocent/But come to harm/For dreams of glory/And just a line in history. Led on,led on/To take the path/Where our bright future/Is in our past.”

At song’s end,she has turned it around in the finding of peace in humanity’s nature whereby,“Lead on,Lead on/Oh clear the path/So our bright future/May come to pass.”

In an interview a few years back,she said:“I was raised in a Baptist tradition,but then I went to an Episcopalian high school and they were very accepting of people of all faiths. And I think I was very influenced by that and notions of intolerance that some people have about other religious traditions just,I think in some ways because of,you know,my own background,it doesn’t make any sense to me. And I just started thinking about how we sometimes need to be saved from the people who think they need to save us.”

Perhaps,sometime down the years,a new Chapman album will rise to the surface of the unhurried river. But if it doesn’t,we still have the gift of her music. And give thanks.