One of the wonderful things about cover versions is how they can introduce a new audience to an old artist. They can also introduce old audiences to new artists. I had never heard of Luke Combs when he covered Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" in 2023. Chapman and Combs performed a beautiful duet of the song on during the Grammys in 2024.

Kara Swisher devoted an episode of her podcast, On with Kara Swisher, to the resurgence of interest in Chapman's self-titled debut album since the Combs cover was released titled "Tracy Chapman's Timeless Earworms". Timeless as an apt descriptor because the most notable aspect of Combs' version is how little he changed. It's close to the original version but the song is so good that it can stand on its own over 30 years after it was written.

This is a list of recent podcast episodes where Kara Swisher spent some time discussing Elon Musk that I found interesting over the past few weeks..

Why We Can’t Quit Elon with Ronan Farrow & William Cohan - On With Kara Swisher

This was recorded in the wake of Farrow's article in The New Yorker about the US government's reliance on SpaceX and Starlink. I also appreciated hearing William Cohen's viewpoints on the performance of SpaceX and Tesla on the stock market.

Elon Musk: Somebody That I Used to Know - On With Kara Swisher

This is an interview of Swisher by Nayeema Raza that was originally recorded in November 2022 when Swisher and Musk's relationship broke down after he acquired Twitter.

"Kara Swisher" - Smartless

This episode had the odd event of Swisher defending Musk.