There are some bands and musicians that, once one discovers them, one falls in love with, and this love will then endure for the rest of one’s life, without interruptions. Then there are other bands and musicians that one will become intensely interested in for a time, then gradually drift away from, only to then rediscover their love for them years later. Certainly I can think of many bands and musicians that fall into that second class in my case: just off the top of my head, I would say groups like Wire, Sonic Youth, Dead Can Dance and, more pertinently to this day’s topic, the American singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega.
One of the tragedies in the world of pop music is how many bands/musicians get written off as one-hit wonders, with people essentially ignoring the music that should get more attention (consider Soft Cell, who most people only know for their cover of “Tainted Love,” but whose 80’s albums are often criminally ignored). I think Suzanne Vega falls into this trap. Mention her to most people and they can only think of two of her songs: “Tom’s Diner” (specifically the 1990 version remixed by the British dance production team DNA: the original 1987 version was a simple a cappella track) or “Luka,” these two songs being her only real hits (and even “Luka” never hit #1 in the US, stopping at #3). But as good as those singles are, her discography does not begin and die with them, as I hope this day will show.
There are certain musical acts out there that, in my mind, are impossible to divorce from the city of New York, such as Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground. I would also add Suzanne Vega to that list. Ironically, she was not even born in New York City. Suzanne Nadine Vega was born in Santa Monica, California, on July 11th, 1959 (thus making her 55 years old today). At the age of 2 and a half, her family moved to New York City, where she spent her childhood growing up in the Spanish Harlem and Upper West Side areas. At the age of 9, she wrote her first poem, entitled “By Myself.” At the age of 14, she wrote her first song, entitled “Brother of Mine.” And at the age of 24, she signed her first major label recording contract, in 1984 (with A&M Records, who had originally twice passed on the demo she sent them, before changing their mind the third time). And the rest, as they say, is history. Her musical style is primarily a cross between alternative rock and folk rock (indeed, prior to signing her first major contract, she was a fixture in the New York City folk music scene in Greenwich Village, and some of her earliest songs appeared on the Fast Folk anthology albums). However, in the course of her career she has dabbled in many other genres, and has thus proved hard to pin down sonically.
I first discovered Mrs. Vega’s music in the spring months of 1998. Having seen the film The Truth About Cats& Dogs during that time period (a very enjoyable romantic comedy, by the way), I eventually purchased the film’s soundtrack as well, and one of my favorite songs off the soundtrack had been Suzanne Vega’s “Caramel.” So when CD shopping one day, I decided to buy one of her CDs. Unsurprisingly, I picked the one that had “Caramel” on it, which was at that time her most recent album, Nine Objects of Desire. I quickly fell in love with it, and began to get some of her other albums. But then, sometime around the year 2001-2002, I seemed to lose interest in her music. That was the time of my life when I was really getting into power electronics and bands like Whitehouse, groups with a brutal sound and “extreme” subject matter: and the albums of Suzanne Vega are almost at the opposite end of that spectrum. So even though I would listen to her stuff every now and then, I no longer considered myself much of a fan, or only a casual fan at best.
Still, times change and so do people’s tastes. While reading the Life section of USA TODAY earlier this year I happened to read that Suzanne Vega had a new album out, Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles. Intrigued by that prog-sounding title, I decided to not only check it out, but also start to listen to her music again, eventually going on to buy the few albums she had put out that I didn’t own yet (mainly her earliest stuff). And lo and behold, I’ve become a big fan again. What is it exactly I like about her work? Well, for starters, I really like her voice, and find it quite soothing, even when her subject matters veers towards the dark (her 1992 song “Blood Makes Noise” is about a patient getting bad news from a doctor, possibly an AIDS diagnosis, while “Luka,” one of her biggest hits, is sung from the perspective of an abused boy). She projects a sort of quiet intensity, a deceptive frailty, and though she always appears to be in control, one sometimes gets the impression that she’s standing on the brink of an emotional abyss and is in danger of falling in at any time. I find her songs and melodies quite catchy, and like her lyrics, many of which (especially on her earlier albums) read less like songs and more like poetry.
Unlike many of the bands I like who have been around for awhile, Mrs. Vega can hardly be called prolific. She released her self-titled first album in 1985. Her most recent album, as already mentioned, came out this year. In that nearly 30 year span of time, she has only released 8 albums, and these albums have a conciseness I find admirable: not one of those albums hits the 50 minute mark in terms of running time, and only 3 of the 8 crack the 40 minute mark. Her body of work is impressive: 8 studio albums, 2 greatest hits/singles collections, 4 acoustic albums that feature stripped-down arrangements of many of her songs (I haven’t heard these yet), 2 live albums, and, in 1999, a book: The Passionate Eye: The Collected Writings of Suzanne Vega, which includes the lyrics of her first 5 albums, along with various poems, essays, journal entries, and an interview with Leonard Cohen (it’s a must read for fans of her music, in other words). Those who would like to explore her world would probably be best off buying one of the greatest hits collections (A&M Records’ Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega might be the best starting point) and, if they like it, move on to her studio albums.
For this Day, I have assembled here 9 of Mrs. Vega’s songs: 8 from her albums, and one that she wrote for a film soundtrack (this methodology obviously being inspired by the name of her 5th album). I will now go through each one, shedding a bit of light on the albums from which they were extracted in the process. After that will be a few assorted videos, some pictures (as I’ll be the first to admit that I find Mrs. Vega to be very photogenic), and a few links of interest. But first, a few random fun facts about Mrs. Vega:
-she is a practicing Nichiren Buddhist
-with Duncan Sheik, she once co-wrote a play about Carson McCullers
-in 2006, she was the first major recording artist to perform in the virtual world Second Life
-her song Tom’s Diner is about the real-life NYC diner named Tom’s Restaurant (which was also a stand-in for the fictional Monk’s Café on the TV sitcom Seinfeld)
-her favorite painters are Francis Bacon, Edward Hopper and Egon Schiele
-some of her favorite writers include Anne Dillard, John Steinbeck, e.e. cummings, Franz Kafka, T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, Carson McCullers and H.C. Anderson
-her musical influences include Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Laura Nyro, The Smiths, and The Beatles
-she was the very first performer to take the stage at the very first Lilith Fair
-one of her nicknames is “The Mother of the MP3,” on account of the fact that the a cappella version of her song “Tom’s Diner” was used as the reference track in an early trial of the MP3 compression system.
-in a deleted scene from Pulp Fiction, Suzanne Vega is namedropped, when Uma Thurman asks John Travolta’s Vincent Vega character if he’s related to Suzanne Vega the folk singer. Tarantino is a big fan of Vega’s work and once listed her first album in his top 10 favorite albums list.
Nine Objects of Desire
1: Small Blue Thing (from the album Suzanne Vega, 1985)
Spare. Ethereal. Clean. Sharp. Dry. Abstract. Impressionistic. Detached. Just some of the words people have used to describe the first album released by Suzanne Vega. Suzanne Vega’s eponymous debut album was released by A&M Records in 1985. Produced by Steve Addabbo and Lenny Kaye (of the Patti Smith Group fame), this pop/folk rock album was a big success with music critics in the USA, and even reached platinum in the UK: since its release, it has sold close to two million albums worldwide, and often pops up on “best albums of the 1980’s” lists. Two singles would appear off this album, the finely crafted but somewhat generic pop song “Marlene on the Wall” and the far superior “Small Blue Thing.”
The album’s opening track, “Cracking,” sets the tone of what’s to come: sharply plucked acoustic guitar, an airy New Age-style keyboard, and Suzanne’s flatly delivered, practically spoken word vocals, done in a style somewhat like Laurie Anderson. It creates a sensation that is somewhat soothing: one can easily picture Patrick Bateman listening to this song in his Wall Street office on his Walkman headphones, chilling out after the brutal chainsaw murder of an escort girl. It pretty much sets the stage for the rest of the album, though there are a few quirky surprises (such as the medieval ballad “The Queen and the Soldier”). Critics were quick to compare Mrs. Vega to Joni Mitchell, but more obvious influences would be Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed (Mrs. Vega will cop to being greatly influenced by Lou Reed; the album’s final track, the funky and jerky “Neighborhood Girls,” which deals with prostitutes, wouldn’t sound out of place on a Lou Reed album). I would probably rank this record in Mrs. Vega’s top three: I quite enjoy the lush 80’s pristine sound and what Rolling Stone referred to as the “cathedral-like ambience,” and though some people complained about the Windham Hill-style New Age production, I can’t think if too many Windham Hill albums that had lyrics such as “I believe right now if I could/ I would swallow you whole/ I would leave only bones and teeth/ We could see what was underneath” (that’s from the song “Undertow,” in which Mrs. Vega casts herself as the voice of the ocean itself). In a decade of sonic excess, this album has a sort of Calvinist austerity that I find appealing. To represent this album, I’ve selected the song “Small Blue Thing,” a masterpiece of self-absorption. I especially like the way Suzanne sings the lyrics “scattering like light,” a fractured image for a fractured album.
2: Gypsy (from the album Solitude Standing, 1987)
When Suzanne Vega’s second album was released in 1987 (again by A&M Records, again produced by Steve Addabbo and Lenny Kaye), some of the fans of her first album saw it as a sell-out, thought it was too “pop,” while some critics noted the more “in your face production” and the emphasis on synthesizers and electric guitar. Some even saw it as a less-focused album than her debut, and I’ve heard that supposedly Mrs. Vega had writer’s block during that period, which might explain why she resorted, in a few cases, to using some songs that were written before her first album. This didn’t stop the album from being a smash success: it’s easily her best-selling record, having gone triple-platinum, mainly thanks to the success of its first single, “Luka.”
To be honest, even though many people say this is their favorite Suzanne Vega album, it’s probably the one of hers I would rank the lowest. As previously noted, it lacks the focus of her first album, and the production style doesn’t interest me as much, being a bit too conventional; also, too many of the songs just don’t grab me, even on repeated listens. This isn’t to say that the album isn’t without merit. It’s interesting to hear the original version of “Tom’s Diner,” before it was remixed into a dance song 3 years later (also intriguing is the closing track, an instrumental version of “Tom’s Diner,” this being the only instrumental to appear on any of Suzanne Vega’s albums), and the song “Gypsy” is a nice, laid-back, folky song that sounds somewhat like something that wouldn’t have been out of place on her first album. And then, of course, there’s “Luka,” which was her biggest hit. I’ve chosen the track “Gypsy” to represent this album, however. It’s one of her older songs (written in 1978, but not recorded till 1987), but it has a nice soothing sound.
3: (from the album Days of Open Hand, 1990)
Challenging. Difficult. Cerebral. Mystical. Enigmatic. Pale. Words one often finds associated with Days of Open Hand. With her third album (once again produced by A&M Records, but this time produced by Anton Sanko), Mrs. Vega was under a lot of pressure (both internally and externally) to replicate the success of her second album. She herself felt the need to craft the “perfect record.” The result was Days of Open Hand, an album that she herself admitted went way over people’s heads, and which took around a year to record. I’ve often seen the opinion expressed that this is one of her worst albums, but in my own opinion, I would say it’s one of her best, maybe even her second best. This was one of the first albums of hers I’ve ever purchased, and it’s long been a favorite of mine. It’s a difficult art rock album, to be sure, one that you must listen to a few times to really start to appreciate. But I’ve always enjoyed such albums, really. In some ways I would say it’s one of her darkest albums, despite having one of her poppiest and most upbeat songs (“Book of Dreams”). Admittedly, the slightly eerie photography and assemblages that can be found in the CD booklet (curtesy of Geof Kern) don’t help matters in this regard. Really, the best way to sum the album up is as a dream set to music.
The first track, “Tired of Sleeping,” seems pleasant enough at first, with an impassioned vocal performance by Mrs. Vega, though some of the lyrics give one pause: what to make of “That man he ripped out his lining/ Tore out a piece of his body/ To show us his ‘clean quilted heart’” or “The bird on the string is hanging/ Her bones are twisting and dancing/ She’s fighting for her small life.” The second track, “Men in a War,” a slightly aggressive pop-folk song, seems to be about Phantom Limb Syndrome. The third track, “Rusted Pipe,” opens with a moody Fairlight organ sequence (played by Vega herself), before launching into a bouncy marimba-heavy percussive groove, though the lyrics are still somewhat bleak, with Vega comparing herself in the lyrics to a rusted pipe that is utterly unable to articulate what it wants to say, being only able to “Gurgle, mutter/ Hiss, stutter/ Moan the words like water/ Rush and foam and choke.” The fourth track is “Book of Dreams,” which was a fairly successful single and is easily the most upbeat song on the album, and it’s a nice and catchy number. Track 5, “Institution Green,” is, at 6:15, one of her rare longer songs (and also one of the few songs on the album that doesn’t have her playing acoustic guitar). An atmospheric song that features various violin instruments and echoed percussion, it seems to be about a girl being admitted into a mental hospital of some sort, and the lyrics are marked by a vague Kafkaesque uneasiness. It’s followed by a shorter song, “Those Whole Girls (Run in Grace),” which I’ve always found unnerving, even though the lyrics seem innocuous enough: it’s kind of chilling when Vega keeps repeating the words “run in grace” in an extremely detached tone at the end of the song. Track 7, “Room Off The Street,” has an almost Middle Eastern-sound to it. Track 8, “Big Space,” seems to be about the void that exists between a couple (or maybe men and women in general). Track 9, “Predictions,” simply consists of Mrs. Vega listing various means of divination, yet it’s still quite haunting. The tenth track, “Fifty-Fifty Chance,” features a string arrangement by Philip Glass, and revolves around a woman who tried to kill herself but survived the incident. The final track, “Pilgrimage,” ends the album on an elegant note. All in all, I’d say that Days of Open Hand is one of Vega’s best albums, and would highly recommend it to anybody. It’s really hard for me to pick just one song to represent this album, but in the end I’ve gone with the unsettling “Those Whole Girls (Run in Grace).”
4: In Liverpool (from the album 99.9F°, 1992)
If Mrs. Vega’s original fans were mystified by her third album, lord knows what they made of her 4th. For once, Mrs. Vega wanted to do an album where the music matched the dirty and grittier aspects of her lyrics, and this album certainly accomplished that. 99.9F° was released by A&M Records in 1992, this time produced by Mitchell Froom, who took a more hands-on approach to Mrs. Vega’s music, playing instruments himself on many of the songs. Entertainment Weekly referred to the album as “Industrial Folk,” and while that’s a slight exaggeration (a few of the songs are still relatively conventional and traditional in arrangement, such as “Blood Sings” and “Song of Sand,” both of which are mostly just Suzanne playing her guitar and singing), certainly the lead-off single “Blood Makes Noise” owes more to Nine Inch Nails than Joni Mitchell, with its tribal-like drum beat and bass, its grinding synthesizer, and Mrs. Vega’s harshly whispered and sonically distorted voice. The album is a masterpiece of production, with its clattering percussion, techno beats, tinny keyboards, odd sound effects, distorted guitars, and carnival-like melodies. Even the album cover was different from most of her other works: rather than feature a black and white photograph of her hanging out in NYC (like her first album) or a pleasant-looking soft focus portrait like her second, here it looks as if her hair is on fire and she’s trying to chew a Band-Aid off her finger with her teeth. Pretty much her most experimental and discordant album, it was a critical and commercial failure. But what do they know? I think the album’s great. “Blood Makes Noise,” “Fat Man and Dancing Girl,” the title track, “Bad Wisdom” (the latter of which has a pastoral, almost medieval-like atmosphere), are all great tracks, but my favorite is probably “In Liverpool,” which has an absolutely epic and soaring chorus hook.
5: Caramel (from the album Nine Objects of Desire, 1996)
1996 saw the release of Suzanne Vega’s fifth album, Nine Objects of Desire (again released by A&M Records, again produced by Mitchell Froom). By this point in time, Mrs. Vega and Froom were a married couple (having gotten married the previous year): in fact, they even had a daughter, Ruby (who had been born in 1994). For the album’s 12 songs, Mrs. Vega decided to focus on nine specific objects (with some objects being covered in more than one song). These nine objects were:
1. Suzanne Vega's daughter Ruby ("Birthday", "World Before Columbus");
2. a man ("Headshots");
3. man 2 ("Caramel");
4. a woman ("Stockings");
5. man 3 ("Casual Match");
6. the figure of Death ("Thin Man", "Tombstone");
7. Vega's husband Mitchell Froom ("No Cheap Thrill", "Honeymoon Suite");
8. Lolita, the "nymphette" of Nabokov's book ("Lolita");
9. a plum ("My Favorite Plum").
As noted earlier, this was the first Suzanne Vega album I ever purchased, and is probably the one I’ve listened to the most. Is it her best album? Probably not. Yet, I still consider it my favorite of hers, and is another one I would recommend highly to people. It’s by far her poppiest (and perhaps even most conventional) album, its sound nowhere near as discordant as the previous one, and I find it to be one of her most diverse albums, one that embraces many different musical styles, such as jazz, blues, bossa nova, Latin, lounge, and so on (indeed, one fan on Amazon liked it to being her Abbey Road). The first song, “Birth-day (love made real)” is a somewhat aggressive rocker, “Headshots” has an almost spaghetti-western feel (with its moody guitar work and its repeated sample of a man whistling), the jazzy “Caramel” has a nice and soothing samba sound (it’s also one of Mrs. Vega’s favorite songs of hers, and features one of her most sultry singing performances), “No Cheap Thrill” is one of the most straightfoward and catchy pop songs she’s ever done, “Lolita” has an interesting tribal rhythm, and “World Before Columbus,” which sonically harkens back to her 1980’s material such as “Small Blue Thing,” is one of the most moving songs she’s ever recorded, with one of her most emotional and passionate vocal performances. Oddly enough, despite the fact that this is pretty much her most catchy and upbeat album, the issue of mortality figures in a few of the songs, mainly “Thin Man” (which seems to be about the Grim Reaper) and “Tombstone.” I had a really hard time picking just one song to showcase from this album: I almost went with “Headshots,” “No Cheap Thrill,” or “World Before Columbus,” but in the end, decided to go with “Caramel,” simply because it was the first Suzanne Vega song I ever heard (and still a great song in its own right).
6: Widow’s Walk (from the album Songs in Red and Gray, 2001)
In 1998, Suzanne Vega’s marriage with Mitchell Froom ended in a divorce, an event that went on to inform much of the lyrical content of her sixth album, 2001’s Songs in Red and Gray, which turned out to be her final album for A&M Records. Perhaps her most personal work, one could call this her “divorce album” and not be too far off the mark, as with this one she mostly disperses of the technique of writing about herself through the medium of characters or objects and focuses more on the first person in her lyrics. In some ways it almost seems like an invitation to fans of her older albums to return to her fold, mainly those fans who were alienated by her Froom-era albums, as this album features more of her trademark acoustic guitar work. Having said that, in some ways I agree with some of her fan base who find this album playing it a bit too safe after the adventurous three albums that came before it: the sound is very adult contemporary, and wouldn’t sound out of place as background music in a coffee house or a mainstream bookstore. Some of the blame has to be laid at the feet of producer Rupert Hine, who bathes many of the songs in an overly mellow, syrupy, and somewhat lifeless sound. Still, there are some very good songs on it, such as the very catchy “Last Year’s Troubles,” the quirky “Machine Ballerina,” and of course, “Widow’s Walk,” one of the album’s singles, and one of my favorite of Mrs. Vega’s songs, with a really great chorus.
7: Ludlow Street (from the album Beauty & Crime, 2007)
2007 saw the release (through the EMI-owned label Blue Note Records) of Suzanne Vega’s 7th album Beauty & Crime, which is perhaps her most NYC-ccentric record. Produced by Jimmy Hogarth and featuring an impressive array of guest musicians (including KT Tunstall, Tony Shanahan from the Patti Smith Group, and Sonic Youth’s Lee Renaldo, the latter of whom contributed guitar to a few tracks, including the song I’ve chosen to represent this album), I won’t say this is one of my favorite Vega albums but it does have some good tracks. “Zephyr & I” is quite catchy, “Pornographer’s Dream” has a smooth bossa nova sound that harkens back to Nine Objects of Desire, “Frank & Ava” (which is about Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner) is a cool rock song, and “Unbound” (a spiritual song about a plant) has a techno dance beat that evokes the spirit of her Froom albums of the 1990’s. The album is dedicated to her deceased brother, Tim, who lived on Ludlow Street in real-life and who is the subject of this touching track, where Vega sings that “Love is the only thing that matters/ love is the only thing that’s real/ I know we hear this every day/ It’s still the hardest thing to feel.”
8: I Never Wear White (from the album Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles, 2014)
In February of this year, Mrs. Vega released a new album on her own label, Amanuensis Productions, this album being Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles. It was her first album of new material in 7 years. Produced by her friend and longtime collaborator Gerry Leonard (who is also David Bowie’s musical director), I won’t say as much about this album as it’s still fairly new and I haven’t heard it as much as some of her other albums. I will say it has a few tracks that I would rank with her best, such as the single “The Fool’s Complaint” and “I Never Wear White,” which I’ve chosen as the song to showcase for this album. It’s probably the closest she’s ever come to punk rock, and has her singing lyrics like “I never wear white/ White is for virgins/ Children in summer/ Brides in the park” and “My color is black black black/ Black is for secrets/ Outlaws and dancers/ For the poet of the dark” over a swaggering rock beat (with bass provided by King Crimson’s Tony Levin). Quite a fun track, in other words, and a fan favorite at live shows. As the title suggests, the album abounds in Tarot-related imagery, not only in the song titles (such as “Portrait of the Knight of Wands”) but also in the lyrics; in “The Fool’s Complaint,” Vega writes about her hatred of the Queen of Pentacles, and identifies her card as the Fool, “That merry rootless man/ With air beneath my footstep/ And providence as my plan.” This makes sense, seeing as The Fool is a tarot card that some people see as symbolizing beginnings, and when one considers Mrs. Vega’s habit of reinventing herself from album to album. And as always, Mrs. Vega’s quirkiness shows up every now and then, such as on the song “Don’t Uncork What You Can’t Contain,” which samples rapper 50 Cent’s song “Candy Shop” (it’s also one of the only times I can think of where she name drops another band/musician in a song: in this case, Macklemore).
9: Woman on the Tier (I’ll See You Through) (off the Dead Man Walking soundtrack)
As a 9th and bonus track, here’s the song “Woman on the Tier,” which was an outtake from the Nine Objects of Desire sessions that later appeared on the Dead Man Walking soundtrack, though in truth it sounds more like a 99.9F° outtake. This was pretty much the last song she did in the “Industrial Folk” style, and I really love it… kind of wish she had done a whole album like this, really.
So, if I had to rank Suzanne Vega’s albums from favorite to least favorite, I would probably say:
1. Nine Objects of Desire (1996)
2. Days of Open Hand (1990)
3. Suzanne Vega (1985)
4. 99.9 F (1992)
5. Tales From the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles (2014)
6. Songs in Red and Gray (2001)
7. Beauty & Crime (2007)
8. Solitude Standing (1987)
(Yes, I tend to favor the 1990’s albums. Don’t be scared away by what some of the old school fans say about her Froom-era albums, they’re great).
Videos
Lou Reed interviews Suzanne Vega in 1986 for 120 Minutes.
Another Suzanne Vega interview, again from 1986.
Suzanne Vega’s music video for the song “Left of Center” (1986)
Suzanne Vega’s music video for “Luka” (1987)
Open Hand documentary part 1 (1990)
Open Hand documentary part 2 (1990)
Open Hand documentary part 3 (1990)
Suzanne Vega’s music video for “99.9 F” (1992)
Suzanne Vega performs her song “Blood Makes Noise” on the David Letterman Show (1992?)
Suzanne Vega’s music video for “No Cheap Thrill” (1996)
Suzanne Vega performing “World Before Columbus” live (1997)
Homer Simpson sings “Luka” (1997)
Suzanne Vega’s appearance in Second Life (2006)
Suzanne Vega’s appearance on the album Dark Night of the Soul (2010)
Suzanne Vega performing “Marlene on the Wall” with Richard Thompson (2010)
Suzanne Vega covers Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” in a concert from earlier this year.
Pictures
Suzanne Vega as a child.
Suzanne Vega in 1979.
Suzanne Vega in the 1980’s.
Suzanne posing on the cover of the “Luka” single in 1987.
Suzanne Vega with Leonard Cohen in 1988.
Suzanne Vega around 1996.
Suzanne Vega in 2003.
Suzanne Vega in 2007.
Suzanne Vega posing in the real-life model of Tom’s Diner in 2012.
Suzanne Vega today.
Another recent picture of Mrs. Vega.
Links of Interest
Suzanne Vega’s official website
a Suzanne Vega fan site
analysis of Suzanne Vega’s Days of Open Hand
Leonard Cohen interviews Suzanne Vega
nice fan site with lots of pictures
info on Suzanne Vega setlists
Suzanne Vega discusses some of her songs
*
p.s. Hey. Today the master guest-post maker plus writer extraordinaire plus a guy who puts the d in d.l. i.e. Sypha makes a triumphant return to the fold of the front page to share his considerableness with the works of songster Suzanne Vega. So, a great chance for you guys today in a bunch of ways, and I hope you make full use of it and direct your responsiveness at the maestro in change, thank you. And major thanks to you, S! ** Tomkendall, Whoa, Tom! Buddy! How sweet to get to see you! Thanks so much for bursting out of the silence with such great news! Your novel is ready for its sprucing and polishing at long last! That's super great and exciting, man! Where can one find this completing masterwork? Man, that's so great! You good? I see fragments of you and yours on FB sometimes, and it's always a joy. Please burst out, or, I guess, burst in, in here again before too long. Lots of love to you! ** David Ehrenstein, That is true about 'O.C. & Stiggs', huh, a film that, yeah, I haven't thought about in ages. How is it? Oh, link. That looks promising: the K.S.A/O.C. clip. Thank you. ** Sypha, Hi, James! The post rules, naturally, and I'm going to spend some of my day getting to know her stuff beyond the stuff I already know, which is basically the stuff MTV used to promulgate back in the, uh, 80s. Thank you! There was a bee in there, but it was dead, so I guess that was okay, right? Yeah, see, I've had this burning instinctual feeling that RS was just taking their unsweet time to say yes! I just couldn't imagine a no in that case. Awesome! Any idea when? ** Kier, Hi, K. Ooh, those are pretty spiders. Yeah, I'm cool with spiders except kind of not cool with tarantulas because when I was a little kid, and when my family was visiting Texas, and when I was wandering around on some farm that I think my dad owned or something, a tarantula saw me and scared me and chased me for literally half a mile as I ran terrified across the farm looking for shelter. So, I still get pangs when I see tarantulas. Photos and gifs are okay, though. I did see your scans. Facebook is so revealing. Well, or I guess 'liking' is so revealing. What?! He doesn't like Guided by Voices?! Then he is dead to me. Dead, I tell you! Kidding, obvs. So, you leave for the north today, no? Safe trip. How are you getting there? My day was basically consumed by film prep stuff, contacting people for Zac and me to meet with re: roles, setting up the appointments, working on scene revision, asking a certain great, known music maker/composer if we can use a couple of tracks by him in our film and getting a happy yes, etc. That was kind of my day entirely. It was good, though. Went well. Kind of more of the same today, I think, plus, I hope, work on my novel. Have safe and even fun travels, if that's your day ahead. How was your day ahead? ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, I read that manifesto yesterday. It's very refreshing indeed. Everyone, Steevee says, 'Here's a refreshing manifesto from Palestinian youth who are both anti-Israeli and anti-Hamas.' Ade did get a push to some degree. I don't think it worked all that well. Rightly or wrongly, I remember people I know who were into that music considering Ade's work to be a more 'acceptable', 'friendly' version. I haven't listened in Ade in ages, so I don't know if that's fair or not. ** Hyemin Kim, Hi. Bees would have been more scary. I might try a bee one. To see if I can scare people or, more interesting, to see if I can not scare people. You weren't/aren't being bland. I know bland when I see it. Yeah, totally understood about the panic attacks and the very reasonable reason that they happen. That sounds really stressful. I wrote a remembrance of Bresson for Artforum when he died. It's in my book 'Smothered in Hugs'. Let me see if it's online. Hold on. Oh, wow, I guess it's on that Dennis Cooper official website even. I had no idea. This is it. ** _Black_Acrylic, That's pretty cool if I managed to makes spiders scarier than they inherently are even if I don't find them particularly scary. Oh, shit, so sorry to hear about the stalling out, Ben. I don't suppose you could find another editor? I don't know. I hope that guy gets on the ball and comes to his fucking senses. ** Keaton, Thank you, man! I think things that have spider in the title tend to be good for some reason. Or wait, let me think. 'Spider Stratagem', ZS & the Spiders from Mars, 'Boris the Spider', ... But wait, the 'Spiderman' movies are mediocre crap. Never mind my poor theory. I remember that movie 'The Guardian'. I think, wow, I might even remember that video store cardboard display? Is that even possible? ** Statictick, Hi, N! How very, very, very welcome it is to see you! Understandable, man. Ongoing love and hugs. Wow, the Odd Hours post. Yeah, that would be very sweet and welcome, thank you! Awesome that you have so many projects on your plate. And about the personal stuff, and the interpersonal okayness. Oh, Nick Cave. I really liked the Birthday Party and his early solo stuff. I just stopped paying close attention at some point, I don't know why. Cool that he was great live. I would think so. I saw a couple of early Bad Seeds era shows, and they were great. Questions, okay. Man, take care! ** Joshua nilles, Hi, man. Whoa, nice sentence. Did I miss your take on Chris/Rewritedept's excerpt? Shit, I'll go back and find it. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Huh, okay, a Cormac McCarthy post. I didn't expect that. Not that I expected anything. I don't think I've done one, true, or, if I did, it would have been on my old, dead, ghost town of a blog. All right, that's a challenge. Hm, I'll try to do something that isn't just the usual or overly familiar CM thing. Interesting. I'll do my best. You'll see whatever it ends up being on the weekend. Nice reasoning on his part there about 'funny marks all over the page'. What a card, and, yet, he has a point. Doesn't like Proust. I find that very refreshing. Ugh, about the allergies. Was last night the second Benadryl night, I hope? I'll take a tiramisu on you. I like it too. Not the frozen supermarket kind, though. Yuck. Hella yuck. But the real thing, nice. Thank you! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Thanks, Jeff. Later this week or next should be okay for me. Let's sort it. I have film stuff to do, but I should have some windows. I'll know better what my windows are tomorrow. But if you want to suggest a day/time, we can start there. I guess novels need to be on ice at times. That can even help. I'm trying to defrost mine at the moment. I like Silver Jews. I've never been head over heels about him/them. I think the album I listened to the most was 'American Water', actually. He/they are one of those artists I always want to concentrate on more than I have. ** Kyler, Yes, you shall, you did. Oh, you might do a reading or readings? That's a good idea. I better you're really good at reading. Checking to see if there are less of your books on bookstore shelves can drive you crazy, man. Be careful. I used to do that in my early, uh, 'career'', but then I decided to never check. Neither solution is a happy one. I don't mind semi-colons. I just don't like to use them myself is all. They have their power. All respect to their thing and to their power. I'll enjoy my Mardi. You enjoy your Tuesday. It's, like, in the upper 70s here. Not bad. ** Rewritedept, Hi. That's a good theory. I do that sometimes. I love cutting and editing back, so it's not scary to put too much in at first. 'Assisted Living' is a goodie, yes. My Monday was productive. See my report to Kier if you're interested, but it's not that interesting to hear about. We start rehearsals for the next scene on the 21st and start shooting on the 24th. My novel is still a very incomplete first draft. I'm still getting the first draft down. I edit all the time, though, first draft or not. Cool, nice about your pals. All right, enjoy your Tuesday to the max. ** Okay. Go see, read, hear, and watch what Suzanne Vega is all about through the magnificent filter of Sypha's fandom and powers of persuasion. See you tomorrow.