Fast Car

You got a fast car

I want a ticket to anywhere

Maybe we make a deal

Maybe together we can get somewhere

Any place is better

Starting from zero got nothing to lose

Maybe we'll make something

Me myself I got nothing to prove

And that's how Tracy Chapman burst on to the scene back in my final year of high school. A songwriters song with poignant imagery, sad and hopeful at the same time. It tore at your heart strings, at your humanity. An example of a song that, if you allowed it to, would draw you into a world you had no real knowledge of. Dilapidated and broken inner cities, abject desperation with a simple hope of a better life. A country as rich as America's shouldn't have this problem to sing about...but it did, and still does. It always did. It drew me in.

Thirty years. It seems like a lifetime ago. I laugh at my then self today. Thought I knew the score, I had it all figured out and I was the best I was ever going to be. I suppose we all do that to one degree or another. We just don't know what we don't know,we don't have experience to lean on, to learn from. We were young and alive and the world was at our feet. And it really was. Growing up middle class in a suburban wasteland is a hell of a lot better than inner city Detroit, any reserve anywhere or the refugee camps dotted through out the world...hell, we had it gold as far as the big picture was concerned. That's why we should be able to understand that taking a risk that seems foolish is all related to context, we're talking about people with nothing to lose deciding to hop onto a floating desk passing as a boat or tying their hopes and dreams to a guy with a fast car. Do something, do anything, just to get out. While I know better today I still don't really know...many of us don't.

Thirty years ago I fancied myself as a thinker when I wasn't partying. A guy with a bit of a social conscience that never really did more than talk about issues. Take away the partying and you pretty much have the same thing today. I might do a few more things on the "social responsibility scale" now and then but essentially I join the other Facebookers in voicing indignation and pontificating about a better way. Told ya I was going to be honest. I'm OK with that though, despite the truth hurting a bit from time to time. My heart is in the right place. And who's to say that I'm not having an effect? Maybe I am. Certainly I feel that in myself so that has to count for something. Not everyone can move the world, so being part of the solution by not making the problem worse is not a bad way to be. The unexamined life thing comes to mind.

A friend of mine, when talking about the crazy world of dating in our 40's and soon to be 50's, described it as our own personal journey, something that each of us has to  live and grow from. All of life is like that. Everything we do, see, hear and learn is part of becoming who we will be tomorrow. And the day starts fresh each morning, that endless progression through this thing called life. Do we get in the fast car with the hope of a better tomorrow? Are we resigned to dreams only? Where is this car going? 

Ms Chapman simply pulled back the covers on a sliver of life, allowing us a glimpse into what is out there. As almost all artists do, she reflected back to the listener a message, a reality. After that, it's up to us alone to do what we will with that information.

You got a fast car

Is it fast enough so you can fly away?

You gotta make a decision

Leave tonight or live and die this way

Ciao

D