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“Wasn’t Even Planning On Recording It”: Luke Combs Says His Cover Of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Was Nearly Never Recorded
One of the best last-minute decisions ever. Despite being the second-highest-selling country artist of all time, having a plethora of certified diamond hits such as “Beautiful Crazy,” “Hurricane” and “When It Rains It Pours” and for all intents and purposes being the biggest straight-down-the-middle country artist of the past decade, ironically, Luke Combs‘ biggest hit of his career thus far has been none other than his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” which found its home on his 2023 album, Gettin’ Old.
Though it hasn’t quite pulled the streaming numbers and RIAA certifications that the aforementioned tracks have, to date, “Fast Car” is Combs’ highest-charting song. In addition to doubling up at #1 on both Billboard’s Hot Country and Country Airplay charts, it would also reach #1 on their US Adult Pop Airplay chart and, more incredibly, #2 on the all-genre Hot 100.
After all the success on both streaming and radio, it led to two CMA Awards for Single and Song of the Year in 2023, a Single of the Year win at the 2024 CMA Awards and a nomination for Best Solo Country Performance at the 66th Grammys, where he’d make his iconic performance alongside Chapman during the show.
Of course, the track is nothing short of a smash at this point. With that being said, however, it was nearly never recorded.
In an interview with 60 Minutes Australia, the North Carolina native would reveal that he never really intended to record the song, and it was ultimately an extremely last-minute addition to Growin’ Up. Though he wouldn’t directly state it, he’d also imply that the fan reaction to the acoustic rendition of the track he posted during the pandemic also played a role in finally giving “Fast Car” a chance in the studio.
“I played it on a live stream during COVID at my house, and people really loved it. I ended up in the studio like two years later. I had an extra hour, wasn’t even planning on recording it, to be honest. And I was like, ‘We have an hour, let’s throw this on there just for fun.’ Then it just became the biggest song I’ll ever put out probably.”
At Whiskey Riff, our blog about that COVID-era cover went mega-viral, and it was immediately clear to us, based on the fan reaction, that Luke needed to record it. And we wrote a number of follow up blogs over the years begging him to do so. And it honestly seemed like it was never gonna happen. Incredibly, he almost didn’t record it, even with the extra studio time.
In a conversation with Garth Brooks during an “Artist-to-Artist” conversation on the BIG 615 radio station, Combs would also reveal that his producer Jonathan Singleton almost talked him out of recording the track.
“We get in and we finish early and Jonathan is like ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘What if we do a cover of Fast Car?’ I wanted to do it for me. I remember Jonathan trying to talk me out of it. He was like, ‘Dude, that song has been covered so many times. Nobody’s gonna care.’
I said, ‘I don’t care if anybody cares. I just want to have it.’ I had been covering it for years in college and it’s always been this really big part of my life. So we did it and it turned out really great. We put the record out and we didn’t promo it or anything and it just took off.”
Overall, Combs’ version of “Fast Car” always felt like one of those “lightning in a bottle” moments that simply cannot and will not be replicated again. And after multiple CMA and ACM wins, a Grammy nomination and one of the most iconic Grammy performances of the last decade, it’s safe to say that he made one of the greatest last-minute decisions of all time upon finally pulling the trigger and recording it during Growin’ Up’s creation.
“Fast Car”
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The post “Wasn’t Even Planning On Recording It”: Luke Combs Says His Cover Of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Was Nearly Never Recorded first appeared on Whiskey Riff.