Many listeners took Suzanne Vega's new single "Luka," with its quick tempo and energetic rhythms, as sort of a message to the public: the singer was proclaiming her desire for wider commercial success.
With the soft acoustic melodies on her first album, which underlined the singer's whispery vocals, the New York City native was heralded as the new queen folkie, occasionally receiving a "female Bob Dylan" tag.
Yet as the singer-songwriter explains, the harder, more percussive sound of her new most recent album, Solitude Standing, was actually what she wanted all along.
"I never intended the first album to be as soft and sort of Windham-Hilly as it came out," Vega explained in a recent interview. "I had wanted the music to match the intensity of the lyrics. And I remember listening to it going, 'Well, that's not what I really meant at all.'
"I was very depressed about it for about a couple of months. And I thought, 'Well, I'm just going to have to work harder on the next album to get the music lined up more with the lyrics,'" she continued. "I realized what I thought had a harder edge was not hard-edged in the real world - because you've got punk, disco and all this stuff assaulting people's senses."
Vega will be bringing her newfound sound to the Austin Opera House this Tuesday, where she will be performing on part of a 1987 World Tour. Although most Austin radio listeners are familiar with the more hard-driving "Luka," the material on Vega's new record reflects a diversity of creative ideas and influences, a result of the singer's wide musical background.
Exposed to blues musicians and Brazilian jazz artists like Joao Gilberto through her parents, the singer turned her listening tastes to Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel, and eventually she became hooked on folk star Leonard Cohen. It was not until she had reached college, however, that Vega started paying serious attention to more street-conscious music.
"I went to my first rock 'n' roll concert when I was 19; I went to see Lou Reed," Vega said. "That was really interesting. This was 1979, when he had sort of a lower profile. It was a really influential concert; I started listening to his records right after that."
Although she was once actively involved in the Greenwich Village folk community in Manhattan, hanging out at clubs like Folk City and Speakeasy, the young performer now seems to have mixed feelings about being considered a traditional folk artist. While Vega is concerned with the roots of her music, she is also very interested in modern sounds: "I want to take what I like about folk music and make it contemporary."
But to many listeners, "contemporary" folk music means the acoustic artists of the early and mid-1970s, much of which has been relegated to the light rock or "easy listening" radio stations. Consequently, Vega has often been compared to such singers as James Taylor, Carly Simon and, most frequently, Joni Mitchell.
"That's slightly annoying to me because everyone is always going to say that I sound like Joni Mitchell," said Vega. "Certainly no girl with a guitar in the '70s couldn't helped but be influenced by Joni Mitchell... I don't think she gets as much credit as she deserves. But there's the implication that you don't have any of your own originality.
"Because I grew up in New York City in kind of hectic circumstances and bad neighborhoods, I felt my daily life was always a struggle," she continued. "I think for a while I was listening to a pastoral kind of music in an effort to get back to a purer time or something.
"Then when I saw the Lou Reed concert, it really struck me that suddenly there was an urgency to write about the world as it was, and as I experienced it, instead of in an idealized form," Vega said.
The lyrical content of much of the material on Solitude Standing reflects Vega's attempts to sing about more than just sunrises and golden dewdrops. "Luka" is the story of a battered female, age unknown, who refuses to discuss her experiences; "Solitude Standing," the title cut, speaks of a metaphorical death figure who awaits the singer.
Despite the critical praise that she has received for her lyrics, and the flattering comparisons to the songs of Bob Dylan, Vega emphasizes that she is a songwriter, not a poet.
"I never work on lyrics without the music because they go hand in hand with me. I wouldn't say I'm a good poet because I write lyrics. They're conscious as lyrics - they are meant to be sung, they are not meant to be spoken out loud," she said. "I'm very conscious of the ways the consonants and the vowels fit together and the way they'll read when I sing them."
Vega has been on the road for three months, mainly in the United States, but also playing a few dates in Europe "to let people know the album is out." After the stateside dates are up, she is scheduled to return to Europe for more extensive coverage.
"I'm a litle more confident now playing on stage. But I feel like I still have a lot more 'theatricality' that doesn't know how to come out yet," she said. "I find that it's one thing to watch MTV and see what other people do on stage, but I can't run around on stage because I've seen Patti Smythe do it. That's not my way of being expressive."
"I never try to make my music deliberately obscure - I always try to make it as simple and clear as possible. My aim is to talk to people."
Suzanne Vega, 9 p.m. Tuesday at the Austin Opera House, 200 Academy Drive.
[Photo of Suzanne, wearing black, standing against a brick wall, and giving
the viewer a deadpan stare.]
[Caption: "Suzanne Vega can barely contain her excitement after her
smash hit single "Luka" reached No. 15 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles
chart this week."]
Submitted by Rob Walters
VegaNet@aol.com
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