Lena Dunham finally apologized to Allison Williams for making her sing Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” in the series finale of HBO’s Girls.
“I love that Allison would constantly say when we were shooting Girls, ‘Oh my god, are you really going to make me sing this? This is so embarrassing,’” the Girls creator, 38, told Variety on Saturday, February 17. “And I’d be like, ‘It’s not going to be a big deal.’ And then those are the things that become memes for the next 20 years. So I’m sorry, Allison.”
Williams, 35, played Marnie Michaels, best friend of Dunham’s Hannah Horvath, for all six seasons of HBO’s Girls from 2012 to 2017. Nearly seven years after the series finale, a much-memed clip of Marnie wherein she incessantly sings “Fast Car” while driving emerged online after Chapman, 59, performed the song with Luke Combs at the 2024 Grammy Awards on February 4.
Throughout the series, Marnie sang more than one embarrassing rendition of songs she had no business covering. Girls fans will remember her mortifying acapella version of Kanye West’s “Stronger” in season 2. “I will credit her for some of the lyric changes in that,” Dunham said. “We’re very grateful to Allison.”
Following Chapman’s duet with Combs, 33, at the Grammys, the original version of “Fast Car” sailed to No. 1 on iTunes’ Top Song charts. Additionally, her self-titled debut album became No. 1 on the Top Albums chart. In the week of February 17, “Fast Car” re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 nearly 35 years after its release in 1988.
“Tracy Chapman is such an icon, and one of the greatest artists that I think any of us will be along to see,” Combs said in a video about Chapman’s legacy. “It’s a full circle moment for me. Just to be associated with her in any way is super humbling for me.”
Combs’ cover of “Fast Car” appeared on his fourth studio album, Gettin’ Old, in 2023. The song was released first as a single and went on to top the country music charts, even earning a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance at the Grammys.
“She had a vision, and she asked Luke his thoughts,” Combs’ manager, Chris Kappy, told Rolling Stone of the duet on February 9. “Then they just kept running through it and running through it. It was a fun way to watch two artists create the moment that we were going to have all together on the Grammys.”
Separate from the fact that she rarely does public performances, the 2024 Grammys marked Chapman’s first award show in years. “All of this was done to honor the amazing woman, songwriter, and artist that she is,” Kappy added. “The entire opportunity for us to even be on a stage with Tracy Chapman is what this was all about.”
