Tracy Chapman: From ‘Fast Car’ to Slow Lane : Pop beat: The artist says her hit song became a symbol of superficiality. Her ‘New Beginning’ centers on relationships and environmentalism.

The “Fast Car” of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 debut hit was a seductive and desirable thing, but to the song’s narrator it became a symbol of superficiality and avoidance, a vehicle in which her lover escaped commitment and responsibility.

For Chapman, pop stardom was in the same category. It offered some practical benefits to an artist, but celebrity didn’t suit her, and the top of the charts wasn’t necessarily an appropriate place for her solemn, downbeat vignettes of bigotry, poverty and class conflict.

Spurred by the success of “Fast Car,” Chapman’s first album sold 3 million, and she won the best new artist Grammy. But, she insists, she’s just as content with the less lofty numbers of her subsequent works, 1989’s “Crossroads” and 1992’s “Matters of the Heart,” and with her far lower profile in the pop world.

“I see my particular artistic role as being true to myself, my artistic self,” Chapman said this week. “From the first record onward I’ve simply tried to do that. . . . I trust there’ll be an audience out there, and if for some reason there isn’t, then that’s all right as well.

“I never assumed I would have that commercial success, so it was a total surprise. And honestly, I never assumed that it would ever happen again.”

Chapman, who will perform on Wednesday at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater, has reduced the social commentary on her recently released album “New Beginning,” which centers on personal relationships and a spiritually tinged environmentalism (see Record Rack, F10).

But don’t take that as a sign that her concern has diminished. During a phone interview from a tour stop in Detroit, Chapman sounded as passionate as ever about the plight of the disadvantaged.

“Every form of positive change I would like to see occur seems to be happening much too slowly,” she said. “And in so many ways in recent years I think we’ve made steps backwards actually. So much has happened to obscure the dialogue about race and about gender and discrimination in general, especially where those things touch on economics.”

That sounds like a bleak assessment, but Chapman managed to describe herself as optimistic--”Only because I feel I have to be,” she added with a rueful laugh.

“I meet people in my daily life, people who seem to experience some change and some growth on a personal level, and that gives me hope,” elaborated the singer, who grew up in Cleveland and now lives in San Francisco.

“And part of it comes from my own experience too, knowing that the greater my life experiences become, the greater my knowledge has become about the world and the way that other people live. For the most part that’s made me a more open-minded person, a more accepting person and I hope a more caring person. And so that makes me hopeful.”

Chapman is just 31, but the pop machinery moves so fast that her arrival can now seem like ancient history. The impact remains, though--Chapman is regularly cited today as a major force in restoring a social conscience and folk-music values to popular music.

Chapman chuckled at the idea of being cast as a matriarch, but she’s proud of her role.

“I guess I still feel like I’m fairly young. I mean, I’m flattered. I would hope that if people take anything from my music in general or my career specifically it would be that they should live the kind of life that’s meaningful to them. Make the kind of music or try to do the kind of work that’s meaningful to them. To follow their own path. To be true to themselves.”

* Tracy Chapman plays on Wednesday at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater, VA grounds, Brentwood, 8 p.m. $24. (310) 825-2101.