In the mid-80s, alongside the likes of Queen and Erasure and Wham! (coming soon), something entirely different was happening to further the visibility of queer folx in the music industry. With the success of “Fast Car,” Tracy Chapman emerged as a worthy torch-bearer for a new generation of Women’s Music. I don’t have time today to do the necessary digging to corroborate this next statement, but I bet there’s an argument to be made that, without Tracy Chapman, we don’t get Melissa Etheridge or Sarah McLachlan or Alanis Morissette, or even the entirety of Lilith Fair as it existed in the 90s. (There’s a deep pool to dive in here as well. Stay tuned.)
Tracy’s work has always been broadly focused on the state of the world and issues of social justice on a grand and tiny scale. She’s quiet about her sexuality, saying that she prefers to keep her private and public lives separate; she’s also never denied the public statement from novelist Alice Walker that the two were in a romantic relationship in the 90s. (To be fair, if Alice Walker had claimed that about me, I wouldn’t deny it either!) But the long arc of Chapman’s output absolutely leans toward freedom, equality, and especially equity for all, explicitly acknowledging the broad spectrum of people and lifestyles that that entails.
Today, we’ll hear the title track from her 2008 release Our Bright Future. For a long time, I was satisfied with mostly listening to her earlier albums, the ones that introduced me to her and that I was comfortable in. Fairly recently, though, I realized I should dig into more of her catalog, and I’m sure glad I did! This record is excellent and may yet become my favorite of hers as I continue to sit with it. The music is easy to listen to, in the acoustic “coffee shop” vibe for which she’s well known. The words, like the bulk of her lyrics, thread a tricky needle, presenting earnest social studies with a poetic elegance that gracefully surpasses the potential for cheesiness that comes with such earnestness.
Much like yesterday’s “No Time For Love Like Now,” this song is as close to a worship song as it can get. As it imagines a world that overcomes the problems of equity and justice that are ever present, it doesn’t live in a dream world. It’s that version of hope to which we find ourselves clinging more tightly than ever these days, an exhausted and unsure hope that nonetheless will not relent. The melancholy is not ignored here, rather it’s embraced as an important part of the process of perseverance. It even ends on the repeated phrase “may come to pass,” signaling that even when we make great strides, there will always be somebody against those goals, working to dismantle “Our Bright Future.” The work never stops, and that’s what this song is about. May it bolster our collective, tired hope today.
Breathe in and out a few times. Release the tensions in your neck, your shoulders, your arms, your chest, your trunk, your hips, your legs, your feet. Agree with your body that it feels good to do this intentionally. Tell it to enjoy the next few minutes.
Now press play.
Thank you, Spirit of Music, for the strength to hold on and keep working.