YouSaid · the spoken record

Tracy Chapman

lines on the record: 36
first: 2024-02-12
most recent: 2024-02-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“There is a venue that she really loves in San Francisco where she would do a series of shows that, I mean, you know, like a huge Gen X audience would like literally fly to her to sort of, you know, if there was a run of, you know, two weeks of shows, it would be a big event, you know, and you wouldn't have to go on tour. It wouldn't be, I would love for something like that, and then to have a live album come out of it. Like if I were her manager, I'd be like, let's do this. Like, wouldn't that be cool? And like the people who really, really love you are the ones who are going to make the effort to come and show up to see you. Other than that, I hope that she remains extremely unbothered. Like, you know. Yeah.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would love if she wanted to do this, and this was interesting to her, I'd be really interested in her having a residency, right? Like sort of like what Springsteen did on Broadway, right? Or Celine Dion, and we didn't even talk about how amazing it was to see her.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, that would be great. I don't know what I got from the performance in the Grammys that she wasn't any further down the road in terms of her almost kind of reluctance and not reluctance, but just, um... She could do without going on tour. Basically, she's fine with herself that I thought. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, yep, I'm here. I can do this thing. Okay, bye. This didn't blow up my ego at all. It's totally fine. She seemed to enjoy it, but I don't think she needs it for herself. At least that was my interpretation. And I think that's really the biggest question is like, does she want that?”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The other one, the other one is Natalie Merchant because I think like Tracy Chapman, she's just sort of disappeared, but like she's always been there for me, you know, both in 10,000 maniacs. But I sort of feel like she has that similar quality of like this sort of quiet voice that has kind of always been there, but like is just really primed to come back.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, Cannonball was recently added to me and my wife's kind of liked songs on Spotify and has been on repeat. So I think you're on to something there. So I'm going to cheat and say two people. One is she never really went away, but like, I feel like Tori Amos is about to have just like a massive moment. I saw her perform at the King's Theater, not last year, but the year before. She's just the most extraordinary performer. And I was like, oh, where has she been silent all these years? No, she hasn't been silent all these years. She's been making music. She's been doing her thing. But I think that like she could have a big breakout. She did a cover of the soul to soul song Back to Life. And she was like, I've never done this before, but I'm just going to do it right now. Like at the piano, and it just brought down the house. So that was an incredible, incredible show. So I just think that there's like some Torreemo song and not the one that you expect that's going to like break out and earthquakes. Yeah. That's going to go crazy.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's actually just very calming and nice and has rhythm and her voice is incredible. And she's also a recluse. Like other artists on this list. So yeah, I don't think that would ever get her out of a hole, but I'm an unabashedly, I get pulverized for this, but I love it.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think since it was robbed, and it's tragic. And I'm not going to do the Kanye thing and look how that worked out in terms of where Kanye is now. But you know, this is an album I totally agree. So modern, you know, like just something so modern and now. And I'm sorry, but Killbill is like one of the most unhinged, extraordinary. Like, I'm going to do a song about murdering my ex and his girlfriend. And you're going to like it. That was my favorite song of the year, like just hands down. It was my favorite song of the year. And it just. I don't know. There was something about that album and that song that just like, I mean, if you really, talking about a revolution, like making that at the big award, I think would have been an extraordinary statement”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, that's awesome. Good for you. I mean, I'm a part time. I'm not like a full throated Swifty, but like, I'm glad she exists in the world.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the rate has just gone absolutely ape. I just think that it's this moment where it's the hottest girl in school, like dating the captain of the football team is like literally Americana. That should be the conservative op, right? They managed to make this sort of very conventional heterosexual relationship in a time of like overwhelming queerness and polyamory and all this other stuff that freaks the right out. So I think it's fascinating that, you know, that there's been such a freak out about Taylor and sort of what she's up to. But I also think like, I don't know, like there's nothing more intimidating than a powerful woman who's taking on the world in her own terms is doing what she wants, is like making art based on it. And it's like talking about like female shit that like, you know, and doesn't really care what men think and doesn't really care what like men want. It's like, go, girl.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's incredible, and I think it kind of goes back to that idea that today there's a lot more a cappella singing on TikTok, things like that, where people are a lot more direct and real. And the fact that”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To be the person that they want to be out in the world, and also to make change happen. I don't know. There's something about this sort of hopefulness of that song that, and it's sort of like galvanizing force that just stays with me and always has. I will say something very interesting is that there's an entirely a cappella song on the album. I can't remember the name of it. Behind the wall, yeah. That just seems...”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's sort of hard to choose because I love this album so much. But I think I'll choose the first song, which is talking about a revolution because to me it was a time in my life when this album came out where I needed something to help me think about what a future might be. And even though it's talking about social justice, it talks about, you know, I think at this time in my life, and it was, you know, sort of adolescence when you're thinking like nothing's ever going to get better. The idea that like this person who kind of looked a little bit like me, dressed like kind of the way that I would want to dress, was talking about a future that was going to be different than things were right now. I think was like just the song that I needed to hear, you know? So every time I hear that song, I'm sort of transported back to that feeling of recognition, right? Of seeing like someone who's been able”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A little bit more twangy, it's a little bit more raw. There's less reverb and kind of like studio production that you can hear. It just feels a little bit more visceral and clear. And I think the lack of reverb on this, even though there is probably a ton, is just so much nicer with her style of music. And I think it just comes across. It's gritty. And I like the grit in it.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say for my lover and not for the lyrical content as much as the instrumentation, this is like the first song on the album where I listened through and I was like, this is exactly how she should be accompanied.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I mean, this has been a long time coming. It's like classic situation where big corporate conglomerate has their entire library on a social media platform and is, you know, using that leverage against the social media platform to attempt to make more money, not obviously for their artists so much as for themselves. In this case, they weren't bluffing. I think a lot of people maybe thought that they were. But yeah, as of right now, there are no universal music group artists, especially, you know, the big ones on TikTok, which is the biggest music platform in the world.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yeah, I can see the parallels so closely, and especially in a lot of the more independent self-released artists as opposed to the ones that are getting picked up by record labels after one cover, it's the artist that are deciding to stay independent that are studying deciding to self-release on their own, that have a little bit more ability to say these things without the massive production behind them or the need to fund a tour, all of those things. So I hope that continues, but you never know Universal Music Group just took all of their artists off. So now maybe that'll give some more space for the ND artist to thrive.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tik Coffee house of 2020 Open mic, it's the ability to just like speak directly to the public and not have a massive filter of a record label in front of you yet. Obviously, that's also the place where scouting happens and things like that. But yeah, just like Mara said, it's the place where people are direct. And I think in Tracy Chapman's time, it was, you know, college campuses a lot more in the sort of communities around that.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, you're not Easter egging. You're not just sort of saying what you mean in a sort of very plain and authentic way. And to me, that speaks to a hunger for sincerity, you know, for authenticity, for a sense of connection that doesn't require understanding some Talmudic code of like Taylor references.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. You know, it was on the Barbie soundtrack, right? Or, well, there was a cover on the Barbie soundtrack, but the song played a pivotal role in the movie. And I remember thinking to myself like, oh man, why are people listening to the indigo girls that they're so cringe? And there's something sort of like cringe about Tracy Chapman, too, this like sort of real sincerity, like, you know, non-ironic, you know, like I'm going to actually like authentically and seriously talk about the problems of our world. I feel like so much of songwriting and popular music now is enveloped in sort of, you know, layer after layer of like ironizing. And there's something about the directness of this music, right? And that it's just saying what it means. And it's beautiful writing. Don't get me wrong. I'm not like this is, you know, sort of, you know, paint by numbers.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, totally. So, I mean, I think that the sort of experiences that she describes resonate in a lot of ways, right? But I also thought like, wow, you know, like I can't imagine that someone on the salary of a checkout girl and whatever the job that this partner was going to get that would buy them a house in the suburbs. I just thought like, well, that's just not going to happen. I mean, which is a real change because I think in the 80s, like it was conceivable that, you know, two people without a college education who had, you know, hourly wage jobs could conceivably, you know, buy a home. So I think that these problems have just grown tremendously worse. Now, the other song that sort of broke really big last year, and I wrote about this one too, was closer to fine from the indigo girls. And Kara's laughing because she knows this is an obsession of mine. Like, I really, I really love the indigo.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think so. I mean, I would say that a huge theme in the album is like fight or flight, basically, whether you're willing to fight and talk about things that are really scary or just try to protect yourself and the people that you love. And I think that's a feeling that a lot of people have now, it's less, I would say, flight in a cowardly way than in a flight of self-preservation type of way. And I think that to me really resonates because you don't, it feels like a lot of people today don't have control over what's going on. And so fighting doesn't result in that much anymore, it feels like. And so I think that theme in the album, across all of the songs, like for my lover, I feel like very political in a different way.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was Nelson Mandela's birthday. And here is this 24-year-old woman armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar. It wasn't even like FastCar was her big hit. The crowd is jeering and they're, you know, everybody's kind of grumpy. And by the end of it, you know, this is someone who played coffee houses, you know, by the end of it. She's got the whole crowd just absolutely silent and wrapped by this song. And I think that performance just really tells you something about the readiness of people who had no context, who had no information about who this person was, to hear those words and to experience that kind of performance. You only get that kind of response if you really feel it. And”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If there are people listening who have not seen this clip and it's been sort of going viral again, 24 year old Tracy Chapman, all she had was her guitar. She was basically, she'd already performed. She was filling time in order to hold the stage for, I think it was CB Wonder.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That her album ended up, you know, sort of like just going wild in that performance that you just mentioned, Kara, right? The Wembley Stadium.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, look, this was coming out in the context of just a kind of unraveling, right? I mean, if you look at the large arc of American history, you know, the post-war period was one of big economic boom, but it was also one of big social programs to help people. That was the period that built the American middle class. And the 80s is when it all kind of unravels, right? I mean, the Reagan Revolution was, you know, the scariest words that you could hear, I'm from the government and I'm here to help, right? And the huge dismantling of all kinds of social programs and things to help people. Fast car is a song about social mobility, being able to go from one place to another and not being trapped. So I think that that music spoke to something that, you know, people were really, really, really viscerally experiencing. And I think it's actually very meaningful that she was sort of discovered through live performance.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I write about what I'm thinking about. I write about the things I'm curious about. So that means I write love songs, but I also write songs about social issues and about what it means to live. And I think that the album is kind of a holistic depiction of just her thoughts and feelings over the course of many years. She wrote talking about a revolution when she was still a student at Tufts, I believe. And so, you know, this idea that just her observations because of where they're coming from are inherently political is, I think, something that you can unpack really.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, I think she was also very explicit about the old idea that the personal is political. Like I was reading some old interviews with her, you know, and in Rolling Stone in 88, she said, she asked if she was a folk singer. She kind of hesitated and she was like, I guess the answer is yes and no. What comes to people's minds in the Anglo-American tradition of the folk singer, they don't think about the black roots. So in that sense, no, but my influences on my background are different, which is a combination of the black and white folk traditions. In 2015, she talked about how sometimes I'm called a political songwriter, and I don't really have a problem with it, but it's not how I see myself.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fame or they're taking a victory lap like Joni Mitchell. And so I don't know. The combination of those two things to me felt just really, really satisfying. And I don't want to oversell it. There's still a lot of work to do.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, the last century. The 1900s. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, this is the story of American music, right? Is taking the very, very real artistic product of black American artistry, of their pain and experience and sort of transmuting it through white experience, right? I mean, this is the history of country music. This is the history of rock and roll. This is history of the blues. And I think that what's so profound about Tracy Chapman is that she's sort of getting her flowers at this moment where it's not just the sort of the racial part of this, right? Where the sort of the black root of American music has been erased for so long. She also was appearing at a Grammy show where, you know, it was just wall-to-wall, like grown-ass women, a series of just like banging performances by grown-up women who are in the height of their, you know, kind of mastery of their.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“what tens of thousands of people and I felt that too when he performed on Sunday with the sort of reverence that he looked at Tracy Chapman with and the deference to that he gave to her, he really just loves this song and I feel like that's even though it might not be artistically that profound, I feel like in this age of Attention spans being so short, giving that shine to something that was so important to him and bringing her like accolades. Like she was the first black woman to win the country songwriter of the year. That, I think, is really special.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I was lukewarm on the cover. I know no pun intended, sorry. Because I feel like the production of it didn't help it. It had that kind of like modern Nashville sterility to it. And then last summer, I saw Luke Combs live at Gillette Stadium. And the way he introduced the song was just so reverent too. And the performance live without the kind of compression in the studio really made the cover make sense to me. And the way the audience reacted to was just so heartening, you know, that it was all of this just like appreciation radiating out from.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was appreciation, and in some ways, kind of tribute. And I think the other thing that is that does not prevent other artists from picking this song up and reinterpreting it in new ways, you know, in the future, I would love to see what like a hip-hop artist would do with it. Although, you know, she did have to sue Nicki Minaj, Tracy Chapman did at one point. I think she got like a 450,000 judgment. She doesn't like people touching her.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Performance. And I was like, that to me is like a little bit of an insult to the artist and also an insult to the song, right? Because the song is so powerful that it can receive multiple interpretations and meanings. But then when I saw the performance, I realized that there was actually like, I think, a profound act of deference happening here, you know, that he was basically saying like, I can't improve upon this song. Like, I don't, you know, like, I just want more people to hear it as it was intended. And from his kind of posture in the performance and from his, you know, just like clearly the way that he absolutely worshipped her, it was clear that like, oh, that's what this guy was up to. And I was like, I can get behind that. It's still not my favorite version of appreciation.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, for sure. I really love covers, right? Because I just think that the idea of finding something new and distinct in a song is just such an act of genius, you know? And I think it also is a real tribute to a song, right? To be able to find sort of amplitude that the person who initially wrote it didn't necessarily find or explore. And then sort of like blow that out, right? I mean, and there's some amazing examples. And I mean, one of the other highlights of the Grammys for me was Annie Lennox singing Nothing Compares to You, which was a cover of a prince song, but like to even call it, you know, I mean, who owns that song? I mean, Shanad O'Connor owns that song. It was an incredible moment, right? So covers are very important to me. And when I heard the cover, I was like, oh no, this is not a cover band. You know, this is someone doing just a kind of note for note, you know, trying to basically just kind of recreate.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so this is like a constant running joke in our household. But when we were listening to this album, I was amazed word for word. She knew all the words and knew them right. And like, and she said that, you know, her mom, you know, who was like working class Jewish boomer loved this album, just loved it and wore the cassette out. And so like, you know, it got kind of imprinted in her brain in this way. But it's funny how that happens, right? That certain songs just like almost fuse into your brain and you just, you never forget them.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally, yeah, that's how he came across it. It's funny. Candy and I were listening, Candy is my wife, and we were listening to it this morning. And we joke that she has this very tragic and rare affliction that I call song blindness. She can't remember the lyrics to any song, or if she does remember them, she remembers them wrong. So we were listening to Michael Jackson. She was like, tell them that it's me and you, Joe. And I was like, no, it's tell them that it's human nature.”
2024-02-12 · On with Kara Swisher · Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT