Apparently, I have a theme song now (no one consulted me)

I couldn’t tell you the first moment I realized that “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman was following me everywhere I went. It came on slowly, I guess, until one day I realized wait a minute…there’s that song AGAIN.

At the time, I didn’t even know what it was called. In fact, the only part of the song I knew when it first started following me around was the iconic: IIIEEEIII 🎶 Everything I knew about it, I had probably picked up from hearing it at karaoke or in the background of TV shows a few times. I had to do some SoundHound and internet sleuthing to figure out what song this was that was suddenly EVERYWHERE.

Once I found out it was “Fast Car,” I was confused. Why was this song, of all the songs, playing on repeat in the background soundtrack of my life?

By then, it was following me across state and country lines.

In 2023 I was walking through the Heathrow airport coming home from Finland. It was the holiday season and the speakers above me as I walked through a relatively empty area of the airport were playing Christmas music. Probably “Last Christmas” if I had to guess because that seems to be the official European song of the holidays in my experience. I walked right under one speaker to let a family pass me and the playlist made a sudden switch: “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman. OF COURSE IT IS, I said to myself as it serenaded me to my terminal.

I started around the same time to re-learn piano, a childhood hobby of mine. As soon as I got good enough again to play with both hands, the learning app said: Next practice song. Play “Fast Car.” And I thought, of course I’m going to learn to play “Fast Car.” Of course I am. Just me and my electric keyboard and Tracy Chapman.

Then, last year, I was attending SXSW for the first time and needed a quick break from people. That’s hard to find at the festival, but I was at a brunch at the Tennessee House in a restaurant downtown and everyone there was congregated in the other room for some tech demonstrations. (I used to work in tech, different story.) I escaped with some food to the side room to have a quick moment alone. The minute I had the room to myself, the song on the speakers changed. “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman. Okayyyyy wow, I thought. It’s playing just for me, again.

One day recently, I was out at the river with my dog. We go there all the time. This time, though, someone was walking by with headphones on and their volume cranked so you could hear what they were listening to. As they approached, the music came into focus. “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman. I was the only one there on the path to hear it besides the headphones wearer and my dog.

This was all too much for me to dismiss as coincidence or me just paying more attention. You know that as a sensitive person, I’m always going to seek the deeper meaning behind the phenomenon. I became a song detective. My question and mystery to solve: What am I supposed to be knowing or doing about “Fast Car?”

I remember having a late-night chat with my AI robot of choice, Claude AI, about what these lyrics mean and, more perplexingly, what they might mean for ME. We did not come to a firm conclusion, and I can’t even find that conversation in our chat history anymore—a fact which I find universe-level suspicious.

I still don’t know the answer, unfortunately, to what “Fast Car” is leading me toward, and I do intuitively feel that it’s leading me somewhere. I’ll be sure to share when I find out.

But today, I realized something else about it: This has become my theme song. If the universe is playing a soundtrack behind my life, “Fast Car” is the main theme.

I did not pick it. I was not consulted. I would have probably picked differently. I’m an indie rock gal myself. But I’m not mad about it.

The universe is apparently handing out anthems now and, like a good nickname, I have no say in the matter. For the moment, I just have to own it and trust it and let it shape me a little as it follows me around the planet.