OPINION: Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell put the lights back on.

I remember hearing “Fast Car” for the first time. In 1988, I was 11 years old, so of course I saw it on MTV. There was a close-up of a beautiful black woman with close-cropped hair and sad eyes. Behind her, she could see the silhouette of a building against the blue sky. The singer was surrounded by darkness, but a constant light supported her face.

I was drawn to the lyrics. I kind of understood the idea of ​​“somehow saving a little money,” but I had no idea what it meant to “cross the border into town” in my lover’s car. ” Or what it means for the woman in this song to “buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs.”

Nevertheless, the fusion of Tracy Chapman’s voice, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and instrumentation, that thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, intro gave me a new idea of ​​freedom. Ta. A sweet and fleeting kindness that people find in the space between impossible moments, where anything is possible. Chapman’s songs offered glimpses of pain, hope, and love in a way I had never seen before. the world outside yourself. A truth that belonged to someone else, but to 11-year-old me, it resonated as if it were my own.

In my pre-adolescent soul, “fast cars” opened windows where previously there were walls. It seems I’m not the only one who felt this way after hearing country star Luke Combs introduce the song during this year’s prime-time Grammy telecast.

Combs included the song on his 2023 album “Gettin’ Old,” which became a huge hit. His version of the song hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country chart, and many people who don’t know his story remember the bold act of a white Southern man covering Tracy Chapman. I wondered if he had taken it. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance, and the show’s producers brought in Chapman to sing the song with him.

Combs talked about how the song struck him as a child while riding in his father’s truck. He stated that Chapman was the main inspiration that drew him to guitar and songwriting in the first place. When the country star looked across the stage at his songwriter hero, I could see the sweet catharsis on his face. For her part, Chapman looked the same as she did in 1988, but with much longer braids and a little more gray. But this time the light was not fixed on her face, but was radiating from her.

Later that same night, I noticed a similar glow emanating from Joni Mitchell. The upholstered throne rotated toward the audience, and there she was, a human light. Evidence that people can do important things throughout their lives, not just when they are young. This is proof that there is life in songs too.

I don’t remember the first time I heard Mitchell sing “Both Sides Now” that night. It’s as if the song has always existed. It was born about 10 years before I was, when Mitchell was looking out the airplane window. Mitchell recorded the song twice. The first time was in 1969, when she was 26 years old. She delivered it in a straight walking tempo. The chorus soared with her trademark soprano. The guitar was a collection of her acoustic, accidental strums. Thirty-one years later, she revisited the piece with a full orchestra. The tempo slowed and the voice became quieter. What originally elevated this song to youthful curiosity, a surrender to the greatness of life, has now settled like the wisdom of experience. It was a long flight. The original lightness now seemed balanced by regret.

(“I lost something in living each day, but I also gained something,” the young singer wrote.)

Now, at the age of 80, she sang this song again. At this point in his recovery from a 2015 brain aneurysm, Mitchell’s first performance on the Grammys stage felt infectiously transcendent. Brandi Carlile said in her introduction that, as far as Mitchell knows, she was her first songwriter to turn her “soul inside out.”

First, according to Mitchell’s website, “Both Sides Now” alone has been recorded 1,663 times by artists around the world. Prominent artists across music genres, from prominent roots artists like Sarah Jarosh and Ani DiFranco to pop icons like Adele and Taylor Swift, are fully aware of their vulnerability. It is no exaggeration to say that I owe my freedom to Mitchell. She paved the way for female songwriters to “say ‘I love you’ out loud,” as she sings on “Both Sides Now.” To show up whole, as a vulnerable, striving, complex, luminous woman in a dark, cynical, male-dominated industry and world.

Speaking of light, watching Chapman and then Mitchell reminded me of my visit to the Grand Canyon. Specifically, in the morning I woke up in the dark, walked out of my little hut, stood on the edge and watched the sunrise.

I have been looking at photos of the Grand Canyon since I was a child. I had already been there for 2 days. I thought I knew what I was looking at and knew what to expect. But as the sun rose through an ancient geological crevice, it felt like a ray of light was shining directly into my soul through all seven holes in my head. The depth of joy and hope. A warmth that envelops you. The feeling that being alive in this moment, witnessing this event, is a rare and precious gift. A sudden understanding that life is an opportunity. The tears were near my nostrils before I could feel them.

I felt this way again when I saw Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell sing. At their best, songs remind us that there is light shining on us every day. After the world events of the past few years, we still feel like we’re emerging from our little hut. We know full well what will happen. But then the light comes — just like that. Along with that comes tears. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.

kim rule Author of A Singing Army: Zilphia Horton and the Highlander Folk School.

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