Suzanne Vega said all these things: "I would like to be the wild woman of rock." "My fantasy is to be like Lou Reed." "I have a strong need to be solitary." "I'm terribly passive." "I was the strictest puritan you could ever meet." Is she confused? Or is she still an outsider?
After 26 years of being unfashionable, Suzanne Vega is surprised to suddenly find herself in vogue. With one hit single in "Marlene On The Wall" and her eponymous debut album becoming almost a permanent fixture of the British best sellers listing, she can afford a wry smile as the aptly titled "Left Of Center" proceeds steadily up the singles charts.
"The song was written specifically for the movie "Pretty In Pink". I read the script and it seemed like a typical teenage movie, but there was something about the female character. The film's about a 17-year old girl who comes from the wrong side of the tracks and doesn't feel she fits in with her social group. It was something I'd felt a lot."
"In third grade at school there's an "In" group and an "Out" group. I was in the "Out" group. The groups had leaders; you could call up the leader of the "In" group and ask to join, which I did. She told me, "Well, I don't think it works like that". The "Out" group could be found playing "Star Trek" - I'd be Mr Spock, my regular role. The "In" group would play R C K - Run Catch Kiss - with the boys and be very cool."
A magazine story about a similar real life situation, that ended with the stabbing of an "In" group leader for taunting the class misfit and the lengthy six month investigation into the murder, led Suzanne to the song.
"It used to bother me, being in the "Out" group. On the one hand I envied those people, but on the other I have a strong need to be solitary. It was tough, especially when I was 16 years old and playing an acoustic guitar in the lunch room - it was such an uncool thing to do. The cool thing was to be like David Bowie, dye your hair red, be into Patti Smith or punk rock - anything but an acoustic guitar. Everyone thought I'd missed the boat somewhere."
She found the same attitude when record company talent scouts would advise her to write Top 40-styled material. It wasn't until she discovered the sheltered artistic waters of New York's Greenwich Village six years ago that she was able to find support and stimulation for her hypnotic hybrid of folk and rock.
"I had this belief that if you were really good at what you did, then somebody would be interested in you at some point."
Now, while a bigger star in Europe than in her homeland, she's attracted the admiration of New York's artistic elite. She knew she'd arrived when avant garde musician Phillip Glass added her to the lyric writing team for his new album. The rest of the roster was impressive, containing Talking Heads' leader David Byrne, top songwriter Paul Simon and multi-media artist Laurie Anderson.
She heard the completed work on the same day as she finished the final mix of "Left Of Center", co-produced with hip hop prime mover Arthur Baker. The two bodies of work could not be more dissimilar; the nursery rhyme pop of the single and Glass's "weird piece of music ". But she has no worries about juggling the worlds of the commercial and the artistic.
"I believe to be really good you have to do both. It is not a question of choice. My problem with the avant guarde is that people who write like that are very elitist - "I understand this, my friend understands this, but you are not going to, because we're going to leave out certain key sections and you have to follow us". T me, I think why bother? It's hard enough to speak plain English without making it more difficult for people."
"On the other hand, I don't subscribe to the mundane "I love you baby, I hope you love me". If you're going to say something, you may as well say it in a way which hasn't been said before."
"It's an artists responsibility to help people along a little bit. People have to be moved by it, whether they understand it or not. there's still something of the real folk singer in me that likes to tell stories - to be amusing. How can you be amusing if nobody understands what you're talking about?"
One story she still tells on stage is about the inspiration of her hit single "Marlene On The Wall". She knew there was going to be a TV programme on Marlene Dietrich. She switched on the TV and was flicking channels to find the right station while the screen was warming up. From the blank screen she heard the words, "You have led many men to their deaths with your body".
"I was intrigued, and wondered what sort of answer I would give to that. I knew I'd be either embarrassed or apologetic: "I'm really sorry and I'll make sure it never happens again", or I'd tell them that they'd come to the wrong apartment. Then the set warmed up and Dietrich came on the screen - not looking embarrassed, apologetic or even concerned. She said with great gusto "Give me a kiss". It was a terrific answer and one I wouldn't have thought of."
"I'm terribly passive - part of it comes from being shy and always hating it when people look at me. It's ironic since I force myself on stage every night. Every now and again I get hostile and think, "What are you looking at? - which is a bad attitude when people have paid 10 bucks to see you."
"In my work I'm passive, like a piece of film. I receive impressions and then go away and develop them in to a full picture. It's a good way of working. There are so many people who are crusading and parading - music has got so loud and inflictive - I don't want to be like that."
"It leads to problems sometimes. I've see videos of myself, and I can see why people might wish I was more demonstrative in performing. But having grown up in New York, why be more inflictive? You can't possibly outdo anybody else. There's always going to be someone who's louder, bigger, fatter, stronger and who's going to devastate you; so why compete? Why not go your own way?"
She used to have a picture of Marlene on her wall and admits she would like to have some of her sass. But she confides that she's not a wimp."
"Most people who try and cross me, because they think I'm weak and fragile, are surprised because I'm actually very strong-minded. I never used to enjoy fighting, but I would if pushed into defending my younger brothers or sisters. I get less articulate as I get angry and I tended to throw things and fight. My last fist fight was when I was aged 15 - at an age when you are supposed to be past those things - you're not supposed to be hitting people in ballet class."
Sheltering in the cool of the Gran Caffe Degle Artiste on Greenwich Avenue, away from the stifling swelter of the oppressive New York afternoon sun, she looks like anything but the Marvin Hagler of the Greenwich Village folk scene. Even though the delicious mix of the Bohemian and the chic surroundings seem to suit the moods on her debut album, she acknowledges that the seeds were sown in the tougher districts of Harlem and Spanish Harlem in uptown Manhattan. Although born in Santa Monica, California, to a Puerto Rican author father and a mother from the Mid-West, she spent 22 years surrounded by the squalor and danger of New York's wild side.
"My parents are very strict. We didn't go down on the street and hang out. We were very isolated and used to stay home and play games to amuse ourselves. It wasn't idyllic - both my parents were young and used to fight a lot - but it was secluded."
While she had friends who turned to crime and got hooked on drugs and other low life pursuits, she stayed resolutely clean.
"It was terror that stopped me joining them; a fear of chaos. I was the strictest puritan you could ever meet. I didn't even take a drink until I was 18 or 19. To me it was evil. It was a daily survival thing - if I let up for a minute, I felt all hell would break loose."
Since then, she's obviously lessened the grip on her fears, apologising for any fatigued incoherence induced by welcoming the dawn in the company of her friends and a few glasses of White Russians a few hours before our meeting.
Since her success in Europe and her more moderate breakthrough in America, the New York folk scene has taken an upturn. Suddenly there's a lot more work around for people with an acoustic guitar - and it's better paid. But she's still the outsider - not a full member of the "In" group.
"There is a slight feeling of "Suzanne isn't a folk singer any more - she's pop music"; which I have mixed feelings about. It's "She's doing the pop routine now". It is a thinly veiled insult but it's done affectionately."
She admits that she's always been left of centre, off of the strip, in the outskirts and in the fringes as far as the folk scene is concerned, and positively hates British journalists who have called her kitsch or the "coy darling of the New York music scene".
"You've got to understand that the folk scene is so homespun, especially outside New York City. Most of the folk festivals have very sweet, apple-cheeked young ladies with long flowing skirts singing about their kitchens or their boyfriends. When I came on singing in my big black jacket it was, "What was that?": It wasn't seen as kitsch at all. I was even turned down for one gig because they thought I wasn't wholesome enough - singing about "Neighbourhood Girls", a song about prostitutes. Now for me to enter the real world and hear, "She's so kitschy and so sensitive" bothers me. It makes me sound like I'm floating down life's river on a raft with my hair blowing in the breeze - which I'm not. I've struggled through my life like everyone else does but I think I'm a lot feistier than some people might make me out to be."
She showed admirable qualities on her last European tour. Two members of her band took the ferry to Sweden with the tour bus and crew. Someone broke into the bus driver's cabin and stole his money, passport and keys, before immobilising his coach. They flew someone out to get it off the ferry by hot-wiring the ignition. The coach travelled 40 miles before stopping at a service station. The hot-wired ignition sparked the diesel fuel and left the coach little more than a heat-scorched shell of twisted metal and ashes. The poor driver, having lost everything, went home. The two band members had to take a cab ride from Sweden to their first gig in Norway at a cost of £235 and arrived in a state of hysteria. And all before the first gig and a background of the American bombing of Libya and the problems of Chernobyl. It was left to Suzanne to raise morale after such an ill-fated start.
"I talk about the rock'n'roll myth but I can't bring myself to do it. I still have my fear of chaos but I'm drawn to it. My fantasy is to be like Lou Reed. I told that to my audience at the Bottom Line club last Sunday and they started to laugh. I met Lou Reed yesterday while he was doing an album signing session at Tower Records store and he wanted to know why I'd said it. What I meant was that he had so much spontaneity. He can tell the band to play "Walk On The Wild Side" and talk for 15 minutes about the critics and how they're up front and how the people who've paid good money should push their way forward. He can do that because he's Lou Reed - no problem. I envy that ability. For me, when I'm spontaneous I tend to stand still and not say anything. I would like to be the wild woman of rock. Hopefully one day it will come out."
Submitted by Sharon Jennings
VegaNet@aol.com
Up to Suzanne Vega Home Page