How to play Fast Car by Tracy Chapman
Fast Car is a folk-flavoured hit song that is a great choice for acoustic players. Tracy Chapman’s original 1988 version was a Grammy Award winning hit in the USA and a hit in many other countries. The poignant, personal lyrics and gentle acoustic feel made it refreshingly different in the late ‘80s, and the 2023 remake by Luke Combs has introduced it to a new global audience. One of the big digital download hits of 2024, Fast Car is a perfect chart for acoustic finger-style . . .
Chords: A E/A (an E chord over an A bass note) D F#m E E2. (Note the Luke Combs’ version is tuned down a semitone, otherwise is very similar to the original Tracy Chapman version.)
Pick or Fingers? Finger-style intro and verses with finger strumming in the choruses.
Acoustic or Electric? Very much an acoustic number, this one. The hit versions are both played on steel-string acoustic but it also works well on nylon-strings.
Does Fast Car need a capo? No, unless you need to raise the pitch to suit your own vocal range. The original is in concert pitch (normal tuning) but to play along with the Luke Combs’ version you need to either tune your instrument down a half-step, or use software like transpose to raise the pitch of the recording up to concert pitch.
How do you pick the intro riff? Pick all the pedal bass notes (the repeating 5th string) with your thumb. The upper notes (all notes with the stem pointing up) can be picked by the middle finger or, by alternating your middle and index fingers.
How does the timing work? The tied notes can make the timing look more complex than what it really is. Listen carefully to the tune; this is what will guide you. Mostly you are only playing one note at a time, except for on the first beat of the pattern, then on the second upbeat in bar two. At these points pick with your thumb and middle finger together.
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : to learn more about the techniques used in Fast Car check out pages 10, 14 - 15, 17, 24 and 43 - 44.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 is the perfect companion for our song guides. It will teach you how to read the rhythm slash notation used in our charts (and in professional theatre and studio charts) and is specially designed to help beginners speed up their chord changes, master strumming patterns, and many other techniques.