Backbone > Ear Whacks

Viva La Vega
By Sharon Nichols . Photo by Faubel Christensen

ROAD DIARY: MANCHESTER, UK, JULY 3, 2003

A hot gig, with a funny, loud audience, one guy shouting, “I love you!” “I still love you!” and so forth. One woman was obsessed with hearing “Luka” and kept shouting it out, no matter what I said about it coming at the end. When I finally sang it, I saw a little, round black woman singing her heart out, radiating joy and happiness. It was great seeing this.

I’m discussing Suzanne Vega with a friend and he says he only knows “those two songs.” Obviously he means ‘80s pop chart toppers “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner.” Huh? What about “Blood Makes Noise?” “99.9F”? “Caramel”? “Left of Center?” He still insists that Vega is merely a double hitter.

Okay, so maybe two hits are enough for a handmade folkie if they’re freakin’ huge. “Luka”, the upbeat anthem of child abuse, is still played in malls, for sure. And the chorus of “Tom’s Diner”—do do do-do, do do do-do—is probably deep in the DNA of some hermit who’s lived his entire life under a bridge with only one shoe and an apple core. Even now, Vega gets 5 to 10 annual requests from musicians who want to dub that ditty for themselves; it even became its own CD—Tom’s Album—with 13 different versions tackled by various artists. These puppies are not albatrosses. They landed her on the CD Rock Divas for Dummies.

Vega is known for experimenting with musical moods—industrial maelstrom vs. soft and sexy—while adorning them with her signature vocal styling—a soothing, vibrato-less vanilla bean with child-like flavor. After 20 years and a half-dozen successful albums, she’s just released the perfect collection of songs.
RetroSpective: The Best of Suzanne Vega came out in April on A&M, the label that rejected her twice when she was but a Greenwich Village bohemian with six strings and a demo tape. The 21-song anthology delivers career highlights plus a few rare tracks. To promote this one, Vega’s hit the road. Hard.

ROAD DIARY: GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, JULY 2, 2003

I felt like a million bucks at this show! I felt like Frank Sinatra! I came out on stage and everybody started whistling. It made me feel quite beautiful. Last time I played Glasgow was at King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut. The crowd was rowdy. When I told them I’d met the Queen that day, they jeered and yelled at me. However, I got a great bottle of Scotch from the promoter. Here’s what I love about Scotland: the signs on the road saying “Haste ye back.”

Wanting to take a closer look at this folk troubadour’s trip around the sun and her whole fame-and-touring ball of wax, I ring her up one July morning at her Manhattan home. She’s just returned from the European leg of her international tour and has a few moments to chat between waking and working. She’s obviously frazzled; that vanilla bean voice is reserved only for singing, I’m afraid. She sounds a bit hard, like that kid raised in Spanish Harlem.

“So you’re kicking back for a couple of days?” I ask.

“Not really. When I get off the phone with you, I’m going Upstate for a poetry symposium and folk singing festival. Then I have a gig tomorrow; then on Monday I fly out to California and start the third leg of the tour. And I think my next interview comes in five minutes.”

I thought I was busy. I’ve heard that Vega loves touring like a fiend, and when she’s not doing it, she’s dreaming about it. Terrible dreams, like she’s 16 and playing some horrible gig to three sots at a bar. I wonder how an artist with such a hectic lifestyle finds time to relax and create. A spiritual path, perhaps? She admits to being an occasional Buddhist.

“When I chant, I chant because I want to express gratitude for something, or wish for something, or I want to change something in my life that I can’t do with my mind. That’s really what I use my spiritual practice for. My best creative environment is one where things are somewhat calm and predictable with a schedule. I know when mealtimes are and I’m not preparing them.” She laughs, in release. “I need a peaceful atmosphere with regular bedtimes and a few hours where I know no one’s going to call me and no one’s going to need me for anything for at least two hours.”

I have to say it, knowing she’s only moments away from her next questioning intruder. “Well, why don’t you take the next five minutes...”

She laughs again, reading my mind.

“...to do some chanting...”

“Right!”

ROAD DIARY: LONDON, PROMO DAY /HARRY POTTER, JUNE 30, 2003

We managed to snag a couple of tickets to the J.K. Rowling reading of Harry Potter at the Royal Albert Hall. I think I was more impressed than [my daughter] was. Ruby wanted her autograph, so I went to one of the ushers. “My name is Suzanne Vega and I am a friend of the promoter’s. I was wondering if I could get Ms. Rowling’s autograph?” “Are you, dear? That’s nice. She is not giving autographs.” So that was that.

Meet juggling mommy. Vega split from producer-husband Mitchell Froom several years ago and is playing solo parent with help from family and babysitters. Ruby doesn’t like to travel.

“It’s quite difficult,” she says, laughing again. “I have to really put myself in my daughter’s position all the time, every day. I’m always thinking about her state of mind, how she’ll be comfortable. I call her a lot; I e-mail her; we fax each other. I take her with me when I’m able to.”

“How old is she now?”

“She just turned nine. And, you know, the minute I come home, there’s usually a crisis. Right now she has an ear infection.” Mom can’t spend time in the imaginary worlds she once did in her youth.

I’m not sure if motherhood has haunted her songwriting yet, but it might make for a Vega-licious tune. Generally speaking, Vega avoids broad topics, focusing more on smaller portraits of people in certain circumstances. “Living in New York City after 9/11, there’s a million of those small stories that’ve happened and continue to happen. That’s what I’m drawn to now. Miniature situations.” I ask if she sometimes feels like she’s been hit over the head by a muse, like many artists claim. “Yeah!” she replies emphatically.

“You never really know what’s going to strike you. Suddenly you just see something, maybe it’s a child’s face in the street.”

ROAD DIARY: THE EGG, ALBANY, APRIL 26, 2003

Gray, rainy day up to Albany. Only half a house due to the Billy Joel/Elton John concert right next door. I did agonize a minute over my white hoodie with the sequins. Is this dignified stagewear, especially with the Converse sneakers that I am wearing this tour?

I ask Vega how she views success in the context of a music industry that constantly ousts older artists in favor of newer, younger ones.

“Success is having the freedom to do your work,” she replies, “and not have to work for someone else. To some degree you always have to work with someone, you’re always working in some ways with a team of people who are helping you in some way, but the best thing is to be able to keep working and not to have to have a day job, if that’s not what you want. That, to me, is success.”

I have more questions, but I don’t ask them. I feel like giving her some space, and I let her off the hook a few minutes early so she can go breathe.
What comes after breathing and touring? Vega will begin writing new material for her next release in the fall. Also look for a feature-length documentary on her life to be screened at film festivals in 2004.

SUZANNE VEGA WILL PLAY WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, AT THE CHANCE, 6 CRANNELL ST., POUGHKEEPSIE. DOORS OPEN AT 7:30PM; TICKETS ARE $20. (845) 471-1966.