Suzanne Vega is accustomed to being a little left of center. During the synthpop-dominated early '80s, she hit the New York coffeehouse circuit to become, of all things, a folkie.

There, amid blue-jeaned James Taylor wanna-bes, the Barnard graduate wore funky black suits and sang terse, disquieting lyrics about the shattered, dazed, and abused. Some of those songs, set to hushed, brittle folk chords, appeared on Vega's self-titled debut album in 1985. The effect was as if Joni Mitchell were possessed by Lou Reed.

Two years later, "Luka," a child-abuse hum-along from her breakthrough second album, Solitude Standing, was No. 3 on the charts the same week "Who's That Girl" sat at No. 1. And then Vega vanished.

In the music business, it is considered unwise to follow up a top 10 hit with a year off. And then to spend another year honing your songs and recording your next album. And to do so as a barrage of sensitive, guitar-clutching singer-songwriters named Tracy, Michelle, Wendy, Shawn, Sara, Amy, and Emily steal not only your thunder but your niche. But to Vega, music isn't just a job; it's an artistic adventure. And that's why, on the verge of releasing her first album in three years, Days of Open Hand (in stores April 17), she is again hopelessy-and admirably out of sync.

I didn't want to hear any music, I didn't want to write anything. I felt I had nothing to say except 'I'm really tired-I'd like to go home, please."'

In her floor-through apartment in lower Manhattan, Vega is explaining why she nearly entered the "Where Are They Now?" show-biz pantheon in the years following "Luka." Her hair is close-cropped, particularly in the back, making her narrow features even more angular and her frequent smiles that much more expansive.

In the next room, one of her associates is barking, "We're workin' - we're makin' progress" into a cordless phone. Two years ago, those were the last words Vega would have wanted to hear. She had just completed a hectic 12 months in which she recovered from a two-year bout with writer's block and managed to scrape together enough new and old songs to make Solitude Standing. To everyone's surprise, including hers, "Luka" connected with the public and was nominated for three Grammys. Frazzled and worn after a year-long world tour, Vega withdrew, feeling like a spent force at age 28.

"I felt myself being shoved into folk-icon-dom," Vega explains, sitting at an antique table and flipping through a mock-up of the art-filled CD booklet for Days of Open Hand. "'She's going to lead us into a revolution!' That's not my temperament; that's not my personality. I want to be an artist, not an icon."

When she began writing songs again, toward the end of 1988, she made a conscious attempt to vary the program. Narrative song structures, her early strong point, gave way to structures that were more surrealistic (her word). She began using more major chords to accommodate her itching-to-rock band. And she wrote what she calls "a wholeheartedly optimistic" song titled "Book of Dreams."

"I tend to be more attracted to darker things," she says. "I've never thought about the idea that you could write a happy song that didn't have any dark sides or broken people or missing parts." Yet, she adds, "I feel there are certain trademarks that I know, and every so often I go, 'Oh, stop. Don't write about child abuse or whatever-just stop. "' She laughs. "I thought, 'OK, I'll write something really happy. This'll get them."'

Vega's idea of happy, however, is relative. The songs that tumbled out-half of them cowritten with Anton Sanko, her kevboardist, bandleader, and roommate-touched on soldiers lying wounded in a hospital ("Men in a War"), grappling with the creative process ("Big Space," "Rusted Pipe"), and attempted suicide ("Fifty-Fifty Chance," complete with a striking string arrangement bv Philip Glass, who called the song "somewhat morbid"). Not exactly the stuff of a Paula Abdul album but to Vega they represent a step forward.

"I felt a lot of the songs on the first two albums were very defensive, very guarded," she explains. "I wanted this album to have more of an open quality." Hence the title, taken from a line in "Book of Dreams," the alblum's chiming first single and one of several songs (including the lullaby "Tired of Sleeping") that could be seen as radio-friendly. "Men in a War," which is being considered for the second single, trots as good folk-rock should, until vou listen to the lyrics: "If your nerve is cut/If you're kept on the stretch/You don't feel your will/you can't find your gut."

Her bassist, Michael Visceglia, muses, "It'll be interesting to see what happens with that tune."

By all accounts, Days of Open Hand was not the easiest record to make. Despite doubts on the part of her label, A&M, Vega and Sanko decided to produce it themselves, rather than use producers Lenny Kaye and Steve Addabbe(Vega's comanager), who helmed her first two alblums. But what seemed like a simple idea- recording the bulk of the album in a makeshift studio in Vega and Sanko's apartment -wound up taking from July 1989 to February 1990. "It almost felt like Tears for Fears or something," Visceglia jokes.

Meanwhile, A&M, which had hoped Vega would work with a "mame" producer, waited patiently. "I knew it would be a more atmospheric record than usual," Steve Ralbovsky, A&M's senior vice president of artists & repertoire, recalls. "My anxiety level rose and fell throughout the project."

As a "little bit of insurance," Ralbovsky hired engineer Hugh Padham (known for his work with the Police, among others) to spruce up the final mixes of Days Of Open Hand - make the vocals and instrumentation more defined, the arrangements punchier and more vivid. That is the order of the day on a late afternoon in February in a recording studio in Manhhattan's unglamorous garment district. As Padham works in the control room nearby, Vega takes a tea break in the studio's kitchen. Inevitably, conversation turns to the slew of nouveau-folkies who found themselves with record contracts, critical acclaim, and MTV exposure in the wake of the success of "Luka."

The audience that I had with 'Luka' may decide now that I suck," Vega laughs dryly. "Or. 'Now there are all these other women-what do we need her for?"'

That question lingers over Days of Open Hand.

"We talked about it [the new competition] in slightly flip wavs," A&M's Ralbovsky savs. "It was always with a joke or a smile. But I don't think it'll be harder for her. She's a trailblazer for a lot of what's happened." He adds, "Artists need a year to recharge, these days, after a huge album. And the public's used to waiting that long between albums now."

This is not the first time the word artist has come up in discussions of Vega. Indeed, her meticulous work methods ("Tired of Sleeping" began life about eight years ago) place her in the noble tradition of Paul Simon and Leonard Cohen (Vega's admitted hero)-writers who work and rework turns of phrase until the precision and imagery are just right. In 1990, a time when rappers spin out dizzying, articulate rhymes on the spot and a three-minute video can tell whatever story needs to be told, such a notion seems quaint and old-fashioned. Is this any way to run a career?

"Some people always want you to be more political, or they want you to be more extreme," Vega says. "Some people want you to have more choruses that you can sing along to. They want you to write happier songs. I feel now I've gotten my own parameters mapped out. I don't feel like I have to shave my head or write 'Talkin' Bout a Revolution.' I feel I can just work on my own path."

A studio assistant drops off a bag of groceries to shore up for the hours of work ahead, and Vega returns to the control room. There, Padgham is completing the final mix of "Room Off the Street," an acoustic number from the new album that features such ancient Middle Eastern instruments as the dumbek and nay. These are not the types of instruments normally associated with a major record by a major pop star released by a major conglomerate. But Suzanne Vega wouldn't have it any other way.

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Submitted by Julie Chan

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