interview, by allan rousselle, december 1986

Introduction At the time of the following interview (December, 1986), Suzanne Vega's first album (Suzanne Vega) had been out for some time; her second album (Solitude Standing) was still being recorded. The single for "Marlene on the Wall" was doing very well in Europe (especially Israel), but had pretty much floundered in the US. A&M had just released a new single, "Gypsy;" a different recording of this song eventually appeared on the Solitude Standing album. Also, Suzanne Vega had recently written the lyrics for two songs on Philip Glass' "Songs from Liquid Days." Other lyricists on the album included David Byrne, Paul Simon, and a host of other very talented and well known writers. Suzanne Vega Interview, by Allan Rousselle First printed in Generation, December 9th, 1986. Copyright 1986 by Generation. Generation is a publication of the students of the State University of New York at Buffalo. On December 5, before her concert at the Talbert Bullpen, a disk jockey from WBNY and I interviewed Suzanne Vega. Thoughtful lyrics and unusual melodies typify Vega's music - not a common formula for success in the modern music scene. Yet, she has a large cult following in America, and an even larger following abroad. What follows is the conversation we had with this rising star. G: You sing background on one of the Smithereens' songs. How did you get linked up with the Smithereens? SV: I knew Pat DiNizio from various connections. He was going out with a friend of mine about three or four years ago. Later on, I ended up hiring him when I was a receptionist and I needed an assistant. So, we worked in the same office together for about six months, and we were both at that point very anxious to quit our day jobs and pursue our careers. So, things started to take off for us, I got tickled when he asked me to do backup vocals. I had never done backup vocals before, and I wanted to work with Don Dixon. G: Was this before or after your contract with A&M. SV: It was after. It was earlier this year. G: Speaking of associations, you wrote the lyrics for "Lightning" for Philip Glass. How did you come up with that? Did he come to you, or did you offer? SV: I'd never go to him. Looking at the list of people he already had, there's no way I'd just pop up at this doorstep and say, "Hi, I write songs." I think someone at A&M had told him about me and he came down to a gig at Folk City - this may have even been before I recorded the album. So, he saw the show and had asked me if I was interested in writing some lyrics. As it turned out, I visited his house with a notebook full of lyrics, and he picked out two that he thought would work well together. G: With "Left of Center," you worked with Joe Jackson. How did that come about? SV: Well, it was almost a coincidence. He was in town - he's also on A&M - and I think he was in town on the day that I was in town. I was on the tour list when they were recording this, and I had to come in from Ohio, record the whole session in one night, and then go back out again on the road. He was going to be in town, so we met, I guess, at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and we showed him the song. He had already heard it before, so he fooled around with some ideas and we just worked together and it worked very naturally. G: At your last concert.... SV: My last concert was on Monday in England. I just got back from a two-week tour of England and Ireland and Scotland. G: What makes up your audience on your current tour? Are you just hopping around as people invite you to their venue? SV: Not exactly. We had decided to do some gigs in the Northeast because, first of all, it was convenient and it was close to New York City, which is where I'm from, and we wanted to do some warm-up dates before England, and now we're doing some gigs afterwards. We're going to end up in New York City next week. G: How's your latest single "Gypsy," doing? SV: It's hard to tell. I never in my whole life thought it would be released as a single, and it made me laugh when they released it because I wrote it when I was 18 for this guy that I knew, never dreaming that in eight or nine years, it would be released as a single - especially in England, which is where the guy was from. I think it entered at number 75 and went up to number 70 and it's kinda hanging out there. It was not something that I thought would zip right up the charts. But, I was really pleased with the production of it, because I think it's funny. I think it's quite an eccentric production, which is good because that' what I wanted it to be. I didn't want it to be all spruced up. G: Turning to your next album; in your concert, you perform songs like "Luca" (sic) and "Language." There seems to be a change in the content of your songs. Do you expect to begin getting more involved with contemporary issues which go away from the romantic side? SV: Well, yes and no. I think a lot of people look at the first album and they say a lot of these things are romantic songs. You look at a song like "Cracking," and you hear the line "my heart is broken," so you think, "oh, she had a fight with her boyfriend," but it's not what I had in mind at all. Actually, what I think a lot of the songs are about on the first album are more of identity - of a person finding their way in the world. I was thinking about this a lot because I think a person's heart can be broken in by a lot of things, not just romantic. You can be crushed by your circumstances. The person walking through the park could be anyone. It could be someone who's just lost their job. It could be someone who's feeling just suppressed by their circumstances in general, which is more what I had in mind. Now, a lot of the songs, if you examine them, if you take them away from the romantic, if you say "oh, she's a girl, and she's sorta like Joni Mitchell, so she must be...." If you take it away from that, and you put it in a different context, you'll see they fit in this other context.... If you think of them as being about identity, or about characters. That's something I'm always going to be fascinated with. I don't like writing about political issues because I really don't think it's my place as a songwriter to inflict my opinions on people -- especially since opinions are so changing and I've seen people I know go through wide varieties of opinions in their lifetime. I don't really feel that it's my job as a songwriter to inflict my opinions on an audience. I also think that's the kind of thing that will date you immediately if you insist on doing that. I think it's my job as an artist to reveal what's there, to reveal a point of view. That's why it was good to write from Luca's point of view, because when I wrote the song, it was actually through the eyes of a nine-year old boy, but it could also be through the eyes of a woman who's beaten by her husband. It could be through the eyes of almost anyone if you take it away from this normal context. If find a lot of the songs written that way. "Small Blue Thing" could be written by a woman to a man or a woman to another woman. There's a question, "What do the feminists think about 'Small Blue Thing'?" I think, "Why should they think anything?" It could be a guy singing to another guy. It could be just about anything. I think I'm more preoccupied with context and character than I am with, say, topical issues. There's some deep part of me that is very cynical and says, "Just because I stand on a stage and say war is wrong, doesn't mean anything." Tell me Reagan's going to listen. I don't believe it. G: Many of the songs that appear on your first album are very symbolic: "Small Blue Thing," "The Queen and the Soldier," "Knight Moves." While the symbolism makes them mean different things to different people -- depending upon the context -- was there anything in particular that you had in mind when you wrote, say, "Queen and the Soldier?" SV: Well, I always have things in mind when I write -- I'm not always sure what they are, and that's probably why I write the song. If I knew what I was talking about, I would just say it. I would just write it on a piece of paper, and put it up on the wall -- I wouldn't need to go around singing. There's something, obviously, that goes on -- I write a song because I feel I have to. I'm not one of these people who started writing songs because I thought it would be a nice way to make money. I guess I started writing when I was about 14, and it certainly wasn't something I thought, "Oh, yeah, this is a good career choice. I wanna be a folk singer! This'll be fun." I guess I write because I feel I have to, and I feel I have something to say and the only way I can say it.... Sometimes, when I ask the audience to ask me questions, I'll get strange questions like: "Well, what is the Small Blue Thing?" or, "Why do you feel like a Small Blue Thing?" If I could answer those questions, I wouldn't need to write the songs, I would just explain what I meant. "The Queen and the Soldier" is a strange song for me because it seems to work on a variety of levels. I still haven't figured that one out yet. I don't know what it means to me, yet. I feel a very strong sympathy with both characters. Obviously, I like the soldier better than the queen; I think most people do. I feel a very strong identification with both characters. Some people want to know if that's my idea of romance, which it certainly is not! I mean, I'm not crazy... in that way, anyway. To me, that was a song about power. It was a song about power and the misuse of power and how people hang on to it, no matter what, even if it means that they are ultimately unhappy and suffering because of it. Yeah, I'm sure I have something in mind, but I don't know what it is. Q: What were your early influences in music? SV: Well, I always listened to music, and I listened to a huge variety of music when I was growing up. I guess I listened to the Beatles, and a lot of jazz, and whatever my parents were listening to at the time. My father played the guitar, and my mother would sing with him. That was always interesting. I suppose I got the idea of being a singer from him, my father. I guess he had written a song when I was about nine. So, somehow, the idea was planted really early on, and I think when I was twelve, I thought, "Wow, it'd really be cool if I could write songs," but I never thought that I could. I would fool around with ideas. And then, suddenly, I found that I could write songs, write whole songs, that would come tumbling out and it was that thing where I didn't understand what they were, necessarily, but the idea would take hold and write itself, almost. At that time, I had wanted to be a dancer. I had no intention of really pursuing song writing as a career. I had really wanted to be a dancer, but slowly, I realized that the reason I wanted to dance was because I loved music and that, actually, I felt more community with the musicians than with other dancers. G: What kind of music do you like to listen to now? SV: Oh, tons of stuff. When I'm on the road, I listen to a lot of different things. I listen to Peter Gabriel. I listen to the Psychedelic Furs. For a while, I was listening heavily to the REM Murmur album. I've been listening to Kate Bush because I think she's very unusual, musically. I'll pretty much listen to whatever is around. G: When do you expect your next album to come out? SV: In April. G: What do you have recorded so far? SV: We have one version of "Luca," we have "Gypsy" and "Calypso." We may do a live version of "Tom's Diner," although I'm not sure about that. I had wanted to orchestrate it, but the more I think about it, the more I think we'd better just keep it a cappella. We're going to go into the studio in January. G: Does your band have a name yet? SV: They've taken to calling themselves the "Whack Pack." I don't know what to make of that, but it's better than their last name, which I won't even go into. It's too disgusting to mention. G: What do you hope to be doing ten years from now? SV: I'd like to do some more acting. I had done acting in school, and I really loved it. I'd like to work more with the video, so that I am able to expand a little more, because I think the videos I've done so far have presented a certain side of me that's not playful. I think I'm probably a lot more playful and more aggressive than I may seem on stage. I'd like to get some dancing in there. G: When you say acting, do you mean in video, or film? SV: I'd like to do film. Or, maybe write something. I guess I have a secret fantasy of writing a kind of theatrical piece with music to do with other performers like Lou Reed, for example; I think that would be really cool if I could somehow arrange a theatrical setting to work with other people. That's an idea that I have.