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Luke Combs continues to be a decent dude. As you know, he recorded a wildly popular cover of Tracy Chapman’s song, “Fast Car,” last year. He and Tracy even did an absolutely incredible duet together at this year’s Grammy Awards. I watched that duet like 20 times after it aired, and I still go back to it every so often whenever I need a pick-me-up. Luke’s cover is so endearing because of his utmost respect for Tracy and her original version. He let her have creative control at the Grammys, too. There’s just no ego, and I don’t have to tell you how refreshing it is to see that from someone of Luke’s demographic.
Luke has been outspoken about how much the song meant to him as a child as well as his motivation for covering it and wanting to do right by it. He didn’t even change the line, “So I work in the market as a checkout girl.” As it turns out, despite all of his careful attention to respecting the original song lyrics, Luke unknowingly messed up one of the lines. Instead of singing, ”We gotta make a decision,” his recording has him saying, ”Still gotta make a decision”. Luke said that when Tracy kindly pointed out his mistake, he was super embarrassed.
During the middle of a recent concert, he recalled a particular mistake that still follows him. In a concertgoer’s TikTok, he can be heard telling the crowd that one conversation with Chapman, 60, led him to realize he incorrectly sang the lyric, “We gotta make a decision.” He recorded it as “Still gotta make a decision.”
“That was the first time that I knew that I recorded the song incorrectly,” he told the crowd. “It was her telling me that. Because I remember, when she said that, I wanted to crawl into a hole.”
“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,” he said. “But she was so cool about it.”
Combs told the crowd he was going to sing Chapman’s original lyrics and ditch his recorded version.
“So the version you know is, ‘Still gotta make a decision.’ Not the words,” he said. “It’s just not the words. I made that up in my head.”
“So tonight, I’m going to sing ‘We gotta make a decision.’ Because Tracy Chapman told me to, and dammit, I’m gonna do it.”
Combs covered the 1988 track in April 2023, and it quickly became a fan-favorite. After reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topping the country music charts, Combs’ recording was nominated for a Grammy. And at the 66th annual Grammy Awards in February, Combs was joined by Chapman for a moving rendition of the song.
Before their performance, Chapman told Billboard in July 2023 she was happy to see that people are still enjoying the track over 30 years later.
“I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there,” she said. “I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car.’ ”
Combs told PEOPLE in December 2023 he always thought it was “one of the best songs of all time.”
“But there’s nothing like Tracy’s version, so I thought it would just be a nice complement to the original but never really expected mine to take off quite the way it did,” he said.
Honestly, as a shower karaoke warrior, I get how he could have made this mistake. It’s off by one word and sometimes, we just get that one thing in our head and can’t unlearn it. It doesn’t really change the meaning, although “still” could imply singular over the “we” that was originally intended. It’s pretty adorable that he was so embarrassed by his mistake. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Tracy casually mentioned it to him, haha. I bet he turned bright red. I just rewatched their Grammy performance and Luke sings that verse with the right words. (If you need five minutes of a healthy escape, here’s the link. It’s worth it.) I’m sure he’ll make sure he sings the correct lyrics from now on.
Luke recently co-hosted a concert with Eric Church to raise money for western North Carolina to help with Hurricane Helene relief. James Taylor, Sheryl Crow, the Avett Brothers, and Keith Urban were among the many performers that showed up. The more I learn about Luke, the more I like him. He exudes that tonic masculinity that we’ve been seeing lately.