Luke Combs‘ highly anticipated new album Gettin’ Old is out now. The 18-song record features 17 original tracks and a cover of Tracy Chapman‘s “Fast Car.”

That 1988 hit has been a longtime favorite of Luke’s. In fact, it was, as he recalls, the “first favorite song” he ever had and one of the first tunes he learned to play on the guitar.

“That song’s just been a huge part of my life for a really long time. It’s one of the first songs I remember hearing. It’s probably my first favorite song that I ever had and spent tons of time listening to it with my dad in his pickup truck when I was a kid, probably four or five years old at that time,” Luke shares. “Ever since I could play guitar, it was one of the first songs I wanted to learn.”

While he’s been covering “Fast Car” on the road for years, it wasn’t until it was time to put together his latest project that Luke decided to record a studio version of it.

“I had been doing covers of it in my college years for a long, long time and did a video of it over COVID in my garage playing it,” Luke recalls. “And the fans were like, ‘Man, you ought to do an official version of this.’ And I always wanted to. Finally felt like the right time. I think there will be a lot of people that would be exposed to that song for the first time that will fall in love with it as much as I did.”

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