What is it about Tracy?

There is something in the timber and beauty of Tracy Chapman that almost makes me stop breathing.  The weight is hard to ignore.  I think there are artists out there that have a God given talent that now one else can touch. A lot of people can sing, a lot of people think they can sing, but if you come up against a force like Tracy you have to just stop for a moment and take in the raw natural beauty that she is, it’s almost like sitting a redwood forrest and breathing it in. If you get the chance check out Tracy Chapman’s record Let it Rain, and see what I mean.

Prime examples

 To me, nothing beats a perfectly timed lyric, where the syrconicity of the artist and your personal experience collide, and you find solice, revenge, helplessness or hope in their words.

Some of the lyrics that have done that for me are..

“I don’t understand about the weather outside -0r the harmony in a tune                    or why somebody lies. 

There’s solace a bit for submitting to the fitfully cryptically true 
What’s happened has happened -What’s coming is already on its way 
With a role for me to play I don’t understand -I’ll never understand 
But I’ll try to understand -There’s nothing else I can do.”

Fiona Apple

Red Red Red from Extrodrdinary Machine

http://www.fiona-apple.com

” I ain’t no perfect man – I try to do the best that I can- with what it is I have. My Umi says shine your light on the world. Shine your light for the world to see.My Umi says shine your light on the world. Shine your light for the world to see”

Mos Def

Umi Says from Black on Both Sides

http://www.myspace.com/mosdef

“You wanna be the one made over – be your own before and after-  and the super market beauty in the bottle queen who’ll one day grace the check out counter magazine front cover- though the fine print reads: the picture makes a promise the flesh lets it be broken.”

Tracy Chapman

Broken from Let it Rain

http://www.tracychapman.com/