FM Weekly 4.44

5 February 2024

content notice for this issue: brief mention of domestic violence, pregnancy criminalization and Brittany Watts, death while incarcerated, organ theft / organ harvesting, genocide in Palestine.

Seeing and hearing Tracy Chapman perform “Fast Car” at last night’s Grammy’s was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. To me, it felt like the world took a collective breath, that somehow everyone realized the significance of her performing in public after so much time away. My wife and I were stunned as we realized what was happening, the camera panning over her hands and her guitar. As soon as she began singing, I was immediately transported into the memories of her music and its impact on my life. Watching her own facial reaction as she began singing, her eyes glistening and her brow taking it in, felt right - it’s reported there was a standing ovation as the lights revealed she was there.

I was born in 1984. Listening to Tracy’s 1988 self-titled album is not only a core childhood memory, it is a foundational queer memory. When the only way to “see” people - at least in my family and community - was limited to the available whitecisheteronormative media of television, newspaper, and books, during the late-80s and early-90s panic over AIDS and dehumanization of gay people, an album cover featuring her own gorgeous face was revolutionary all on its own. I remember seeing her, wanting to know more about her, turning on her music and hearing her, and not entirely understanding why I was so drawn in based on her image and voice. Now, of course, I know, and in hindsight, like so many reflections on lost queer time, wonder how my life would have been different had I understood sooner.

Tracy’s lyricism also forms core feminist memories for me. “Behind the Wall” is a song unlike any other, describing domestic violence and the systemic failures that maintain it, in a progressive acoustic build toward a full realization of the failures of police who

“say they can't interfere
with domestic affairs
between a man and his wife.”

Social relationships wherein certain people are vulnerabilized in an accepted and sustained way is a central theme in my work, and this song’s impression on my as a young person I am sure threads through. Tracy’s “Behind the Wall” is one of the songs I play on repeat when I write, allowing me to hyperfocus on what I’m doing while language and themes central to the work motivate me.