LIVE VERSIONS AND A NEW SONG:
SUZANNE WILL BE SUZANNE

Here's some information on the extra tracks that appear on the CD-singles taken from 99.9 F°.
In Liverpool and the regular edition 99.9 F° have three songs each from the Paleo festival in Switzerland, where Suzanne performed on July 26, 1991.
In Liverpool features solo versions of Some Journey, The Queen And The Soldier and Luka, while 99.9 F° features Tired Of Sleeping, Straight Lines and Tom's Diner. Of these six tracks, Tired Of Sleeping is the only song that was never released before in a live version. Tom's Diner is very funny because the crowd joins in with a lot of duh-duh-duh-duh as in the D.N.A. version.
The Collectors Edition of 99.9 F° is the most interesting one. It features acoustic versions of Rock In This Pocket and In Liverpool from a BBC session on August 20, 1992 and a new song called Men Will Be Men. This song was produced by Suzanne Vega herself, mixed by Tchad Blake, engineered by Steve Rosenthal and recorded at the Magic Shop, NYC. It features Michael Visceglia on bass and Marc Shulman on high-strung guitar.

The story behind Men Will Be Men was told by Suzanne herself at the festival in Dranouter (3-8-1991; Belgium). While strumming her acoustic guitar she said: "Last year I was on a very long tour. We went all over the world and played big cities and small towns. And when you're on tour you have these men who work for you and they're called your crew because it's like a ship. And on this ship I am sort of the captain so I've written this song for the men who work for me. It's a drinking song and it's called Men Will Be Men."

The chorus, which is repeated several times, goes as follows:

Men will be men and they'll call me the governor
I walk through the bar and I'll buy the next round
Cos this is my ship and I believe it's my destiny
We all go up go down we go down go down
Through the town and back up through the alleyways
And into the places where people don't stay
Go visit the king and leave through the window
Go hang with the gang and get lost in the fray.
The lyric speaks for itself, really. The line "The places where people don't stay" probably refers to hotels and concerthalls. "Go visit the king and leave through the window" refers to a visit to Portugal, where she was invited by the president of Portugal to visit his palace. On stage at Cambridge (27-7-1991; UK) she remarked about the encounter: "I don't speak Portuguese and the president of Portgual doesn't speak English so we had a very short conversation." When Suzanne left, she opened what she thought was the door, and was held back by one of the president's staff who said: "Please do not leave through the window, Miss Vega, we'd prefer you to leave through the door." An amusing story. 



Oene Kummer



[photograph]


photograph: Nick Vaccaro 9/92



Language ©1992 Suzanne Vega Info Center. For info, send mail to: Karien Smeding or Hugo Westerlund. Typing by Steve Zwanger.