Musical Interlude: Tracy Chapman, “Behind the Wall”

A couple weeks ago, music writer Hank Shteamer tweeted a link to Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song “Behind the Wall,” from her self-titled debut album, writing:

“Fast Car,” yes, for all eternity, but can we make some room for “Behind the Wall”? Made a huge impression back then and I’ve still never heard anything else like it. 110 seconds of unaccompanied voice. Spellbinding.

I hadn’t heard it in a while and was grateful for the reminder.

• music
• Tracy Chapman

“The Unspoken Racial Politics of ‘Fast Car’ at the Grammys”

Ooh, I’d been waiting for this — Tressie McMillan Cottom’s take on the Grammy performance of Fast Car by Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs.

The cover is popular in a genre that has long been roiled by racial conflict. Over the past five years, artists and activists have tried to get mainstream Big Country to get with the multiracial program, but they have won little more than nominal, marginal inclusion rather than a reckoning with the industry’s soul. However lovely, Chapman’s and Combs’s performance ties too neat a bow on years of conflict within country music over who gets to play with the genre’s big boys.

Contrast that with articles like this one: A Rare Moment Americans Could All Share.

People across an angry and divided nation were given a magical, unifying moment on Sunday. We needed it.

“Ties too neat a bow” indeed. Maybe it’s the beginning of something but it sure doesn’t seem like the end of anything.

Update: If you’re on Bluesky, I recommend reading Cottom’s thread that answers a few questions that readers had.

• Luke Combs
• music
• racism
• Tracy Chapman
• Tressie McMillan Cottom