In 1985, when Suzanne Vega released her self-titled debut album on A&M, pop radio was dominated by artists like R.E.M., Elvis Costello, the Talking Heads, the Eurythmics, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood - not a lot of folky acoustic guitar players in that group. Vega's hushed yet powerful songs, such as "Marlene on the Wall" and "Small Blue Thing," seemed to come out of nowhere, making Vega the talk of college coffeehouses and a critical success. Her follow-up record, Solitude Standing, released in 1987, propelled her into the mainstream, and the risk that A&M took in signing a folksinger paid off in a big way. "Luka," a song told from the vantage point of an abused child, went to No. 3 on the charts; "Tom's Diner," an a cappella number about a mundane stop at the coffee shop, eventually went to No. 5 as a dance mix by DNA; and the album went gold.

The success of Vega's first two records paved the way for other singer-songwriters, such as Tracy Chapman and Toni Childs, who might not otherwise have been signed by big record labels. The downside to the success of those first two albums was that it stifled Vega's creative development and put a lot of pressure on her third album, Days of Open Hand, which she coproduced with Anton Sanko and released in 1990. "Everyone felt that it had to be technically clean and up to a certain standard," she told Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers in a 1993 interview. "There wasn't any feeling of, 'Let's be radical" or "Let's twist this.""

Days of Open Hand was a commercial disappointment, and perhaps it was this end to her winning streak, as it were, that gave Vega the freedom to take chances on her next record, the psychedelic 99.9 F, which includes such pop hits as "Blood Makes Noise" and "As Girls Go." "On this album, we were going for delibeate distortion and a more playful kind of feeling," Vega said. "It was like finally you get to go out and roll around in the dirt without having to be cleaned up for Sunday."

The new attitude behind 99.9 F came in part from producer Mitchell Froom. Vega had heard Froom's mostly rock 'n' roll recordings and appreciated the wide variety of sounds he was capable of bringing out in different artists. "Mitchell likes eccentricity," Vega explained, "and when he works with an artist, he'll find out what's different about them and then bring those qualities out, rather than making them conform to his idea. I wanted the last record to have a lot of contrasts in it. I was aware that (before 99.9 F) I had a reputation for being sort of ethereal - wan and frail and melancholy - and it was worrying me that it was all going to sound like one color. So I pushed myself to write songs like "When Heroes Go Down" and to use more major chords than I would have normally."

In Vega's words, her collaboration with Froom allowed her most creative impulses to "come bursting out." And that passion is obvious when you listen to the recording, an exhilarating mix of acoustic guitar, Vega's otherworldly voice, and electric instruments that takes off in previously uncharted directions without losing the thread of any of her songs. "We were careful to keep the whole thing scaled down to my guitar and vocals," Vega said.

In fact, the core of almost every song written for 99.9 F came from Vega's guitar. "What I really love is just to sit with the guitar in my arms and fool around with it," she said. Sometimes a particular rhythmic idea will inspire an idea for a song, or a series of chords will jog something in her mind. " 'In Liverpool' got started because I was trying to teach myself an Elvis Costello song called 'Almost Blue,'" she recalled. "I had just played the first three chords, and then that gave me an idea and I started going off on that."

The melodies in Vega's early songs tended to be made up of short phrases that she would "repeat over and over again," and the lyrics were generally compact as well. "I prefer short words to long ones, because I find that's the quickest way to get someone's attention," she said. "I'm usually writing about a very specific situation, and it seems to me that there is only one set of words that will tell the whole story. It's almost like a code, a way of giving a lot of information in a short time."

With 99.9 F, Vega began to write songs with longer musical phrases, and she is hoping to keep that type of song in the mix of her next album, which will be in preproduction this summer. She finds that songs with shorter melody lines tend to turn out to be more pop, and those with longer melodic themes work well for narrative ballads. Vega hasn't yet written most of the songs for the new record but said she's working on a couple of old-fashioned folk ballads. "I hope they'll come through," she added. "You can never tell what will fly until you get into the studio."

Like 99.9 F, the new record will feature a mixture of acoustic guitar and electric instruments and effects. Around the time of Days of Open Hand, Vega was experimenting with a Fairlight ( a computer-based sampler, synthesizer, and recording system), but she now prefers to let Froom and sound engineer Tchad Blake play with sounds and effects. "I get mesmerized by the supidest mistakes (in the programming)," she explained. "It's a relief to get back to the acoustic guitar after that. I didn't even want to use all six strings on my guitar after all the options of the Fairlight - I wanted to stick with three strings."

One of the biggest inspirations behind the new recording is bound to be Vega and Froom's new baby Ruby. Froom (who's already had an album, Ruby Vroom by the band Soul Coughing, named after her). "She may make it onto the record," Vega said, "but may not be recognizable as herself."

Parenthood has cetainly affected the way that Vega works. "Suddenly I have a lot less time to concentrate," she said. "I used to be able to get up in the middle of the night and play my guitar. Now I can't do that . But I sing a lot more, to Ruby. I make up little tunes, little ditties. she responds really well to that."

"I forbid all tossing around of ideas in the house," said Vega. "When we go into preproduction, we'll work from one to six in a rehearsal studio away form the house." She has basically kept Froom in the dark about the new songs she's working on, although, she said, "Mitchell does hear me singing to Ruby and will sometimes put a bass line behind the melody."

excerpted from "Acoustic Musician": August 1995

Up to Suzanne Vega Home Page

Submitted by Paul Murphy

VegaNet@aol.com