Suzanne Vega has a reputation for being studious and aloof. She wouldn't dispute it. Nevertheless, she does have a warm, inviting side to her nature, illustrated by her new album "Days Of Open Hand", and her willingness to open the doors to her apartment and her heart to Johnny Dee.
Suzanne Vega lives in a large loft apartment which takes up the whole top floor of a block. The apartment is spacious and ordered, split into four quarters - living-room/office, studio (it is here that "Days Of Open Hand" began), bedroom and study. As we wait in the living room to meet her, eyes begin to wander around. In one corner, a secretary sits at a desk overlooking the Hudson River and the Statue Of Liberty, sorting through a mailbag of fan letters. "A lot of the letters are really sad," she tells me. "I'm not shocked by them any more. Suzanne still gets a lot of letters about child abuse, because of "Luka".
On the walls are European tour posters and, yes a framed picture of Marlene Dietrich. Over in another corner, a racing bike is propped up on a stand and next to it a telescope. What's this? Is Suzanne Vega a peeping Tom? The telescope is trained on a hotel room opposite. But after meeting her I realise it's actually the doing of music journalists, who she's let tramp through her house all day, hoping to spy a pervy act going on.
Meanwhile, Ratso and Cow are skidding about the floor chasing a fluff ball and just as I'm beginning to think that cat football should become a televised sport, Suzanne appears from the photo session.
She doesn't look like a star, but she has a certain royal elegance and grace that set her apart fro your everyday Jo. Described as "the thinking man's Madonna - "I don't mind Madonna but I wouldn't go on stage in my brassiere" - Suzanne Vega comes over more as the strict schoolteacher who you find out that, after you've left school, is quite a good laugh.
Are you a voyeur? Do you listen in on people's conversations?
"Well, not as much as you'd think from my songs. I don't lean over and go "Oh that's cool, good point". I collect phrases. I'm interested in the way people talk and what they think about, but I wouldn't describe myself as a voyeur, even if I do have a telescope. I don't sit around looking into people's apartments all day.
"Most of the characters in my songs come out of situations in my life. Like a lot of fiction writers, you take a part of yourself and form a person who people will respond to. You start thinking "What if I knew a hooker and she did this or that, what would happen?"
Most of the songs on the new LP follow similar themes to those on Suzanne's two previous albums; of isolation, sadness and despair. Is she scared that she's going to depress her audience too much?
"Well, if I haven't depressed them enough already how can I depress them any more? Often sad topics are the ones that I feel drawn to. I guess I also feel like writing when I'm in a certain mood and it tends to be when I want to get to the very bottom of something. "Luka" I had to write. I had to write about abuse the way it is, with the details and facts. Not sobbing and wailing but with the details and the facts 'cause that's part of life; things like that happen. I guess it used to make me feel angry as a kid, I'd see these TV programmes and they'd have nothing to do with the way my life was. You see these magazines and everybody is happy and beautiful. That's not reality. So even if my songs are sad or make you feel bad, someone somewhere understands, maybe feels the same way and identifies with something."
That's what happened with "Luka". It struck a chord, tackled a subject that hadn't been grappled with before. Three years later, a vast number of letters she receives are still from fans telling about the violent abuse they've suffered; telling how in some cases "Luka" has helped them.
"It feels very strange to be involved in other people's lives. They think because I wrote the song I must have the answer, but I don't."
"One of the last songs I wrote was "Book Of Dreams'. I thought to myself "Why for Chrissake can't you write a nice song about happy things". I'm not that melancholy a person, most people who know me say I've got a good sense of humour. I think this LP is quite optimistic. "Book Of Dreams", "Tired Of Sleeping" and even "Pilgrimage" are all looking forward to the future."
The future is something Suzanne tries to have an effect on by chanting at her own in-house altar. Since her early teens she and her family have been Buddhists, something she says has helped her through her life and career. This spiritual approach to life also inhabits her work. The song "Men In A War", from the new album, deals with the phenomenon of soldiers who, having had their arms or legs blown off, can still feel that limb.
'I've always been interested in the idea of phantom limbs because I've always felt that there was some inner part of me missing but I didn't quite know how to put my finger on it. So the phantom limb idea was the most tangible way I could tackle that in a song."
At the age of nine, Suzanne discovered that the person she'd always called Dad was in fact her step-father (her mother had married briefly at 18 to Suzanne's real father). Is her father the missing limb of her life?
"I think you're right, and within the past three years I've found my father and I've spoken to him. There was this thing that suddenly my body made more sense to me, as opposed to being a collection of weird things. Like, why does my skin act the way it does? Why do I get these weird rashes? Then I found out that my father was allergic to shellfish. It didn't fix any problems I thought it might. In my child's mind I though meeting my father would change everything but nothing really changed. The only thing that changed was I felt more of a whole person. Suddenly my own flesh and blood made more sense to me because I saw it in someone else."
"Erm... "What do you do for a living? Were you popular in high school?" Anybody who was popular in high school definitely isn't worth knowing. And, "What's your idea of a good time?""
What's your idea of a good time?
"Now that's a good question. I don't know, I like cycling."
People have an image of you as being very scholarly, staying in every night reading weighty books, listening to classical music and drinking wine.
Suzanne: "Sometimes I do that. Most of the time I do that."
Were you popular in high school?
"I didn't feel very popular. I had one or two friends and we'd sorta hang around, but it wasn't the in crowd, the flash crowd. I was much more likely to want to talk about something serious, I wasn't interested in small talk. I think everyone thought that I was smart because I could sing and play guitar and I graduated with eight awards. I don't think anyone thought I was a barrel of laughs to be around. I used to be quite arrogant, I think I wanted to be noticed and I wanted to be liked and respected. People thought I was shy. It wasn't shyness it was aloofness."
So, the cat theory was right. Meanwhile, back in the living room, Cow and Ratso are doing their best to reorganise Suzanne's life. When we return, Cow is in for a stern telling off because he's chewed up the whole "C" section of her index card file and Ratso has somehow managed to pull the second hand from her wall clock. Oh, almost forgot the third "Blind Date" question. What does Suzanne Vega do for a living?
She writes songs. Bloody great songs.
Submitted by Sharon Jennings
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