Very interesting to map the perspectives across the reactionary-liberal-radical configurations of contemporary US society. I have two questions:
(1) Your Springsteen reference is apt because isn't "Fast Car" a kind of remake of "Born to Run"? I don't mean remake in a pejorative sense, just that it is in the tradition of the working-class escape/no escape song. Both songs are remakes of "We Gotta Get Outta This Place." These songs all resonate in the moment *between* escape and no escape. They are, in this sense, liminal songs. There's really no arrival or departure in them, just the moment at the door to the car. For some, you can interpret the songs as really proposing the opposite of their titles: Slow Car Not Going Anywhere, Tramps like us baby we were born to try to run but fail to do so, We are actually not going to get out of this place. Or they could lead in the directions they wish for, that they desire. That's what makes them powerful. They are in the moment when the door hinge might be shutting for the trip or shutting for the night.
(2) I once heard Barbara Fields, of all people, perform a bit of racecraft by saying that Black people would never want to listen to country music, and I thought, what?!?!? Country music is so much IN the African diasporic tradition (not to mention beloved in Africa itself). It is coded non-Black as a way to cover this fact up it seems to be: the polyglot nature of the US working-class (sheeet, the global working class)? To that end, many country stars, both identifying as male or female, play precisely with gender, masculinity, race, and class all in the mix. In this sense there's a long tradition of mixing it up in the music, maybe why on stage at the Grammys, one could say, maybe, that Chapman dressed as the butch male performer and Combs seemed a bit more glitzy and glam...not that it was *so* strongly contrasted, but there was a wonderful presentation there of blurring, mixing, and offering something meant, like the song itself, not so much to assert a resolution as to hang in the balance, like a pair of dice from the rearview mirror?
Very interesting to map the perspectives across the reactionary-liberal-radical configurations of contemporary US society. I have two questions:
(1) Your Springsteen reference is apt because isn't "Fast Car" a kind of remake of "Born to Run"? I don't mean remake in a pejorative sense, just that it is in the tradition of the working-class escape/no escape song. Both songs are remakes of "We Gotta Get Outta This Place." These songs all resonate in the moment *between* escape and no escape. They are, in this sense, liminal songs. There's really no arrival or departure in them, just the moment at the door to the car. For some, you can interpret the songs as really proposing the opposite of their titles: Slow Car Not Going Anywhere, Tramps like us baby we were born to try to run but fail to do so, We are actually not going to get out of this place. Or they could lead in the directions they wish for, that they desire. That's what makes them powerful. They are in the moment when the door hinge might be shutting for the trip or shutting for the night.
(2) I once heard Barbara Fields, of all people, perform a bit of racecraft by saying that Black people would never want to listen to country music, and I thought, what?!?!? Country music is so much IN the African diasporic tradition (not to mention beloved in Africa itself). It is coded non-Black as a way to cover this fact up it seems to be: the polyglot nature of the US working-class (sheeet, the global working class)? To that end, many country stars, both identifying as male or female, play precisely with gender, masculinity, race, and class all in the mix. In this sense there's a long tradition of mixing it up in the music, maybe why on stage at the Grammys, one could say, maybe, that Chapman dressed as the butch male performer and Combs seemed a bit more glitzy and glam...not that it was *so* strongly contrasted, but there was a wonderful presentation there of blurring, mixing, and offering something meant, like the song itself, not so much to assert a resolution as to hang in the balance, like a pair of dice from the rearview mirror?
Michael
Very persuasive, Jim!
Thanks for this essay, especially the long comments from your friend Michael. A very important perspective, and a genuinely adequate one.