Songfacts®:

• Chapman wrote this song when she was 16 and a student at Wooster, a boarding school in Danbury, Connecticut. She grew up in Cleveland but ended up at Wooster because she landed a scholarship. She grew up in a working-class neighborhood, so Chapman wasn't used to this privileged class and the transition was difficult.
  
  "I found that people at the school didn't really have that much interest," she said in 1986. "I was really angry about that, and that's where the song 'Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution' came from. Meaning that a lot of them thought that. They didn't think that people's lives - people who didn't have money or who were working class - their lives weren't very significant and they also somehow couldn't make a change. But I feel that's where change comes from, that's where people are in most need."
• "Fast Car" is Tracy Chapman's most popular song, "Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution" is probably her signature, played at just about all of her shows and one she's clearly proud of. It's no coincidence that it's the first song on her debut album, a fitting introduction.
• Looking back on this song in a 2000 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Chapman said: "I don't feel that far removed from the sentiments behind that song. I'm still thinking and hoping there's an opportunity for people to have better lives and that significant change can occur."
• Chapman got a lot of early exposure when she performed this song with just her acoustic guitar to close out her set at the Free Nelson Mandela Concert at Wembley Stadium on June 11, 1988, two months after her debut album was released. The concert was broadcast globally, giving many people their first look at Chapman.
  
  As a new artist, her slot was early in the concert, but hours later when Stevie Wonder had a technical problem, she was brought back on stage and performed two more songs, including "Fast Car," which was her single. This prime-time exposure ignited interest in Chapman, and her album, along with the "Fast Car" single, shot up the charts across the globe. In her native America, the album went to #1 August 27 as "Fast Car" peaked at #6.
  
  "Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution" was released as her second single with the Mandela Concert live performance serving as the music video. It didn't get much airplay but did help the album sell millions of copies, including a very impressive 6 million in America.
• This is the song that earned Chapman a publishing and management deal while she was still in college at Tufts University. She recorded it at the campus radio station, which played the song. Another student got a tape of the recording and slipped it to his dad, who ran the music publishing company SBK, which signed her and helped her make a proper demo, leading to a major-label deal with Elektra Records.
• On BBC radio, Chapman talked about the inspiration for this song. "In the '80s, we were all responding to what was happening culturally," she said. "I was in school at the time, and the anti-apartheid movement was very strong. College campuses in the United States were really leading the way towards divestment and raising people's consciousness about what was happening in South Africa."
  
  "For me, the creative process is a very mysterious one and I'm never sure what will inspire song but I don't set out to talk about any particular subject or problem or issue, or certainly not to very specifically address something politically," she added. "I'm always sitting down just for the joy of it. I've been writing songs since I was eight years old and it's all about the love of music. Then the subjects that my songs are about, that really just comes from whatever inspires me."