Tracy Chapman realised an artist covered her song incorrectly (Picture: John Shearer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Luke Combs has revealed he was left red-faced after Tracy Chapman pointed out he was singing the wrong lyrics to her biggest hit, Fast Car.
The song was a huge debut hit for Chapman, 60, when it was released in 1988 and soared into the charts and won a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
The song has continued to have a huge legacy and decades on from its initial success, it’s still ranked highly on lists of the greatest songs of all time and has been covered by several artists.
Combs’ version of Fast Car was released in 2023 within two months of its release was streamed more than 65 million times on Spotify.
Although it was a huge hit for the country music star, he revealed that he made a bit of an error with the lyrics.
To make matters worse, he only noticed this error when it was pointed out to him by Chapman herself.
Combs and Chapman have collaborated on the Grammys (Picture: REUTERS)
While between songs during a recent gig, the singer told fans that Tracy pointed out to him that the lyrics were ‘we gotta make a decision’, not as he recorded it: ‘Still gotta make a decision.’
‘So she said, “When you recorded the song you said still gotta make a decision, instead of we gotta make a decision.” And that was the first time that I knew that I recorded the song incorrectly.
‘It was her telling me that. Because I remember when she said that, I wanted to crawl into a hole,’ he revealed to fans.
Luke Combs is a beloved country music star in the US (Picture: Mike Coppola/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
He added that despite his rather obvious blunder, the singer was ‘cool’ about the mix-up.
‘Luckily, she was awesome about it. And I think about it every single time that I sing the song, and I will think about it every single time I sing this song for the rest of my whole life. But she was so cool about it.’
He revealed that he now sings the correct lyrics live because ‘Chapman told me to’.
‘So the version you know is, “Still gotta make a decision.” Not the words. It’s just not the words. I made that up in my head and it’s “We gotta make a decision.”
‘So tonight, I’m probably going to sing “We gotta make a decision.” Because Tracy Chapman told me to, and dammit, I’m gonna do it,’ he told the audience.
The singers joined forces earlier this year (Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Chapman and Combs performed the song together at the Grammys in February earlier this year, after Combs’ cover was nominated for an award.
Chapman commented that she was pleased to know people were still enjoying her hit song 30 years later.
‘I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honoured to be …read more
Source:: Metro
