Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / "Suzanne Vega: Every Album, Every Song"/Lisa Torem [Episode 148]

Transcript

"Suzanne Vega: Every Album, Every Song"/Lisa Torem [Episode 148] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Oh, We're totally booked and I think I'll leave you do you're reading Little
0:06
Hands, It's time to run and roll road. We are totally booked.
0:16
Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about to read and
0:20
rock online. At booked on rock dot com. Exclusive videos, blogs,
0:24
links to all of the social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
0:29
and TikTok. Find every episode of Booked on Rock there, along with links
0:33
to your favorite listening platforms. Liza Torum is a returning guest. Her latest
0:38
book is another from the Sonic Bond on Track series. It's Suzanne Vega,
0:42
Every Album, Every Song. Suzanne Vega's career spans nearly forty years. She
0:48
wrote to prominence in the mid eighties with the hit singles Marlena on the Wall,
0:52
Left Her Center and Luca. Her song Tom's Diner We Can't Forget About
0:56
That One, originally released as an acapella nineteen eighty seven, was remixed in
1:00
nineteen ninety adds a dance track, and went on to reach the top ten
1:04
over five countries. Lisa's here to talk about the stories behind vegas hits,
1:10
why she was given the title the Mother of the MP three and a whole
1:14
lot more. Find a playlist of Susanne Vega on the show notes page.
1:19
Lisa, welcome back. This is your third episode rereas the Charm. Thank
1:25
you very much. We had down for Billy Joel. I think the first
1:27
one was No Billy Joel one, Tory Amos two. Now we're here to
1:32
talk about Susanne Vega. Before we got started on all of this, I
1:37
said, well, I gotta really get myself familiarized with her music. I
1:40
knew the hits, but boy, you really you got me into a whole
1:44
new artist here where I'm just diving into her whole catalog. I love it,
1:48
love it. That's wonderful, So let's get started. Susanne she never
1:52
intended to achieve commercial success, which is interesting. She was more about discovering
1:57
her voice as a poet and a story teller. So really, all this
2:00
commercial success that she got was just kind of by happenstance. She started out
2:05
performing with just her acoustic guitar in New York's gwen It's Village in the early
2:08
eighties, very old school Dylan like, can you talk about those early days
2:13
in Suzanne's career, how she was influenced by not just folk artists like Dylan,
2:17
but also lou Reid, which is interesting. Yeah. Well, in
2:21
terms of Dylan, there was an article women on Bob Dylan in the Guardian
2:25
and she said he opened up the incredible imaginary world. Now that's interesting because
2:30
that's the imaginary world. There was also Jack Hardy, who was her folk
2:36
writing mentor, and they used to have these parties with lots of wine and
2:39
lots of pot luck, and they would be very you know, they cultique
2:44
each other. But in terms of lou Reid, I think he opened the
2:49
door to a very liberating portal because she had written I think we're intellectually in
2:55
a way. But then she saw lou Reid in New York. He didn't
3:00
shy away from showing raw motion, and there were aspects of his performance that
3:04
were very visceral. I mean he would, for example, kind of pantomime
3:07
musing drugs on stage. And it's not that she was a stranger to that.
3:12
She grew up in New York, Spanish Harlem. She'd seen all kinds
3:15
of behavior. But it gave her license to say, oh, I can
3:19
be really visceral, I can be real city, I can ring the city
3:23
into my lyrics because she has sort of grown up with a whole host of
3:27
music. But there were things like the conventional Woody Guthrie and riding the trains
3:31
and things like Stewball, like Leadbelly, you know, kind of stuff that
3:36
really had very little to do with being a New York City person. So
3:39
she went to see him. She was really impressed and sort of at awe.
3:46
She came home with a stack of albums and she sat down and wrote
3:49
a beautiful, bittersweet song called Cracking, which was really a heartbreaking song,
3:53
but it was about melting down. It was very real cracking that. Actually,
3:59
it's a good segue right into that first album she's signed by A and
4:02
M Records, her self titled Debut, is released May of nineteen eighty five,
4:08
number ninety one in the US, number eleven in the UK. Interesting,
4:11
she had a bigger following there at first. The album was produced by
4:15
Steve A. Dabbo and Lenny Kay. And you write about how Suzanne and
4:18
Steve had a few contentious moments. Can you explain why he asked her to
4:23
sing vocal tracks with her guitar even though she wasn't playing it, And I
4:27
believe he even taped it to her hands. Right, Yeah, pretty rad.
4:30
But you know a lot of artists that accompany themselves. I know Billy
4:34
Joel would, he'd have his producers do little tricks to get them away from
4:39
the piano. They're really comfortable with that appendage, you know. And Susanne
4:43
was really comfortable in the folk clubs playing guitar and singing at the same time.
4:46
But Steve A. Dabbo, he was a relatively new producer by the
4:50
way, and he was working with Lenny Kay who was very experienced, and
4:54
he was it was a bit of trial and error, but he wanted a
4:57
lot of vocal clarity, and so he w her to concentrate on singing without
5:00
playing the guitar. And this made her feel uncomfortable. She was not used
5:04
to this world of the studio world. It was kind of this wires and
5:11
behind. It was a much more artificial world that she was used to,
5:14
and she's alone without the audience, so she was resistant, and finally he
5:19
came up with this idea of just taping up the string so she could sit
5:23
there and mock played the guitar or whatever she wanted without actually playing the guitar,
5:28
and ultimately even though there was a little tension for a spell, they
5:31
did get the sound that they both wanted, so it was actually a full
5:35
decision. She thought it was silly, like why am I doing this?
5:39
But it just put her in her comfort zone because she's still a brand new
5:43
recording artist. Up until that point, she's playing pretty much her in her
5:46
guitar live. Yeah. Interesting. So three singles from the album Marlena on
5:50
the Wall, small Blue Thing in Night Moves, and the song Marlena on
5:55
the Wall was the last song Suzanne wrote for the album, went to number
5:59
twenty one in the UK. Can you talk about what or who it's about
6:02
and why Suzanne considered dropping it from the album, Which is surprising because that
6:06
might be my favorite track from me from that debut album. Well, it
6:11
was a hit in Europe, it had achieved a high level of fandom,
6:14
but it did have sort of this unorthodox rhythm and it wasn't really coming together
6:18
in the studio. Now. Guitarist John Gordon, I've got a nice picture
6:23
of him in the book with his pretty blue guitar. He kind of observed
6:27
what was going on and he said to Suzanne, well, it's an up
6:30
tempo song. And a major key. Now, she was kind of used
6:32
to doing on the sad, depressing songs and she'll joke about this on stage,
6:36
but this was a rare, up tempo song and he said, you
6:41
should definitely do it for that reason. So he went to Woodshed and he
6:46
was inspired also by Stuart Copeland, who was the police drummer, and Copeland
6:50
had this interesting reggae style of playing drums. I believe the Suzanne feels that
6:57
John saved the arrangement because of that, because because what happened is he's arranged
7:01
to have a different kind of beat, and it really helped the song with
7:04
the structure, and so it also had a positive message. It was really
7:10
about emotional renewal and reinventing oneself and Suzanne recognized that in the song and it's
7:15
It's Still I believe one of her favorites, and it is about the German
7:20
actress Marlena Dietrick. She had a poster on her wall and I think it
7:25
was sort of almost a voyeuristic thing of like, oh, as somebody comes
7:29
over, I've got Marlena Districk on my shoulder, kind of watching everything I
7:32
do. You know. It's kind of that kind of Ghostie feeling in the
7:36
lyric, and it has this kind of stunning anthemic quality. It's really quite
7:41
a catchy song, and I think it did take the team to get it
7:44
to that point. I think I connect with it too because I love classic
7:47
film, so I knew Marlene Dietrich's name from Turner Classic Movies. Watch it
7:51
all the time. My dad and I used to always talking about, Hey,
7:55
did you see that movie on TCM. She records the song left of
7:59
Center with Jackson for the Pretty and Pink movie in nineteen eighty six, and
8:03
that's a top four to UK single. It was included on her live album
8:07
Live in London nineteen eighty six. But she comes back with studio album number
8:09
two, Solitude Standing April first, nineteen eighty seven. It's released. This
8:16
is her commercial breakthrough, certified platinum. Goes from number eleven in the US
8:18
number two in the UK. Suzanne was confident but fearful of the notorious sophomore
8:24
slump, which can happen a lot, but she certainly avoided that interesting quote
8:28
from Steve A Dabble. However, he said some staff changes at A and
8:33
M proved beneficial. Can you share what he had to say about that.
8:37
There were what they called arrangement and repertoire people back in the day. I'm
8:41
not sure how it works now, but the NR people would be pretty much
8:45
responsible for micromanaging projects. And so what would happen is the A and R
8:48
people would maybe bring in a guest, and the guests didn't really work with
8:52
the chemistry of the existing band members, and so Steve wasn't particularly happy with
8:58
that, you know, because things would get juggled all around and oh,
9:00
here's this guy maybe from LA and he should do this kind of solo and
9:05
it kind of tosses everything in a different direction. So what happened is once
9:09
they left. Once these PARTICULARLY and R people left, Lannie and Steve and
9:15
Suzanne had more authority in terms of making creative decisions. So they took a
9:20
breath, they exhaled and said, oh, okay, we've got it back.
9:24
And he was a happy camper. The singles are Gypsy, Luca,
9:28
Tom's Diner, and Solitude Standing and you lead the entry on the track Tom's
9:33
Diner by writing Who would have suspected that this simple melody would go gangbusters on
9:37
the charts, or that the idea would evolve in such an unremarkable setting.
9:43
There are two versions of this song, an a cappella version and a dance
9:46
remix. This I found really interesting because the dance remix wasn't even planned.
9:52
It is certainly not by Susanne and her camp. It had been written five
9:56
years before. That's the other thing that's interesting. It's based on a real
9:58
play and chances are you've either been there. I know you've been there because
10:03
it's a picture of you with the book sitting there, or you've seen it
10:07
on TV many times. If you're a fan of Seinfeld, can you talk
10:11
about the origins of the song lyrics for Tom's Diner? Absolutely, there is
10:16
actually a restaurant called Tom's Restaurant, and if you go to the Columbia University
10:20
area, it's very close to that area. It's close to Saint John's Church
10:26
Cathedral, which has this bell and you'll hear that reference to the song.
10:31
And so it's a traditional diner style restaurant with the wall to wall windows and
10:37
the vinyl booths and the never ending coffee pod and the friendly waitresses. And
10:41
in Seinfeld, the Americans showed Seinfeld, you also see the central characters meeting
10:46
there, so it's become sort of a great movie interior set, and it
10:50
inspires Suzanne because she would go there. She was, I believe, working
10:54
as a receptionist, didn't have a lot of money, and it was one
10:56
of those rare places where you can just you know, buy the coffee and
11:01
sit there for a few hours and write in your journal and nobody bothers you.
11:05
And there was always a passing prey. There was always some drama outside
11:07
the window, and so she was taking copious notes about what was going on.
11:13
And so that's really how she came up with that narrative. And like
11:16
you said, it was a cappella you know at that point, but it
11:20
was a great place to write. Yeah, the acapella version would also lead
11:22
to Suzanne being called the mother of the MP three. Why is that,
11:28
Well, a scientist heard Suzanne's voice and you know, she has its very
11:31
clear, warm tone to her voice, and so he heard Tom Steiner and
11:37
he said, hm, I can use this song as a test in terms
11:41
of developing the MP three format. So that's what happened, and because she
11:46
became the perfect prototype, she honestly earned the name the mother of the MP
11:52
three. I love it. That's the minutia moment of the episode, right
11:54
there. I love that little trivia. Yeah. The a cappella version reached
12:01
number fifty eight in the UK, number twenty six in Ireland. But in
12:03
nineteen ninety it becomes a massive hit, number five in the US, number
12:07
two in the UK when it's released as a dance remix. This remix not
12:11
Susanne's idea, as it just mentioned, nor was it the record label's idea.
12:16
In fact, this could have led to a lawsuit against the people who
12:18
released it illegally. But instead Susanne and her team, they're smart, they
12:24
make a deal with this British jewelder called DNA. Can you give us timeline
12:28
for this unexpected remix hit? So she wrote the song in eighty two,
12:33
It was on Solitoods Standing in eighty seven, released as a single that same
12:37
year, and then DNA released the remix version nineteen ninety sword to number one
12:43
in Austria, Germany, Greece and Switzerland. And yes, as you said,
12:48
it was certainly a contentious situation. It could have been a copyright infringement
12:52
issue. But the thing was that Suzanne said, you know, it's really
12:56
popular and it's a different version and I kind of like it now. Steve
13:00
A Dabo said he wasn't crazy about it. I'm not exactly at that point
13:05
he was kind of speaking for the group, but it sounds like she saw
13:07
the promise in it. So with that dance speed and with Suzanne then on
13:11
the record, it was renegotiated and she did actually go back years later and
13:16
work with DNA on another tune, so it all worked out. Luca was
13:20
the huge breakthrough hit single for Suzanne. Vega remains her highest charting hit in
13:24
the US, reaching number three, number two in Sweden, top ten in
13:28
Austria, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, nominated for three Grammys.
13:35
As you write, it's one of her most heartfelt story songs. She addressed
13:37
as child abuse in the lyrics, although she did know a boy with that
13:41
name, she said that Luca is an imagined character. You read about how
13:46
this song went through several incarnations, and there is mention of Suzanne being a
13:50
fan of the Smiths, which influenced the song as well. Can you talk
13:54
about that? Well, if you listen to the Smiths song The Boy with
13:56
the Thorn in this Side, you may feel kind of a emilar vibe.
14:00
She was fond of them, and Suzanne wrote the lyric from the heart.
14:05
You know, there was this young boy who influenced him. I think that
14:07
the vulnerability of the boy and his look and so forth, but of course
14:11
it wasn't about him. What I really found fascinating was that the decisions that
14:16
they made in the studio. It's a painful topic. She does it in
14:22
first person, so you feel it feels even more personal. She's got a
14:24
little bit of that wavelike quality sometimes in her voice, so it feels like
14:28
she could portray a young person. But they didn't. They weren't influenced in
14:33
that way with the rest of the song, so it is almost like a
14:37
poppy, dance like song, and that was intentional. Suzanne didn't want the
14:41
song to come off as depressing or as preachy, because she wanted it to
14:46
be a message song but not She didn't want it to be a downer song,
14:50
and so that lighthearted beat. I think it works effectively, and it
14:54
also gives a listener sort of this opportunity to reflect. I think that she
15:00
wanted to be simple and meaningful. I mean, when you think about the
15:03
structure of the sentences. My name is Luca. I live on the second
15:05
floor. They're kind of simple, these structured sentences. There's not a lot
15:09
of fluff and meets. They're very simple sentences, and I think that's one
15:13
of the reasons we relate so strongly to it. And at the time,
15:16
I mean, there weren't songs. Really, it was sort of a stigma
15:20
writing about something like that. And thank goodness for artists like that who bring
15:24
things out in the open, so we can dialogue, so we can change
15:26
things, so we can be aware of things that perhaps we're under the table.
15:31
And she also, I think she really moved to society forward with that
15:33
song. And you say Luca plays her in a position with her fans that
15:37
she didn't expect. Can you talk about the letters she received from fans.
15:41
She was very involved in that process. I think she felt a responsibility,
15:46
but I think it was unexpected that she would be in that role. And
15:50
she was quite young herself. She wasn't like she was a psychiatrist or psychologist
15:56
that she could be in a position she really know how to counsel people.
16:00
But she knew that the song touched a chord, and so it was I
16:04
suppose it was a little bit of putting her in a tough position. She
16:07
did commit to answering letters. The fans were grateful and she I think in
16:11
her own way she did become a healer. But as I said, I
16:17
think it might be a difficult role. And I've heard of other artists.
16:19
Tori Amos was also in that role when she wrote songs, and fans would
16:25
say, this is what happened to me, which should I do? It's
16:26
a tough position for an artist. There is the book Done Rock Podcast.
16:30
We'll be back after this. Lisa Torem here to talk about her new book.
16:36
Susanne Vega Every Album, Every Song. Suzanne kicks off the next decade
16:41
with nineteen nineties Days of Open Hand number fifty in the US seven in the
16:45
UK. In twenty twelve, Susanne talked to you about the pressure she felt
16:48
heading into this record. Can you share what she told you about that experience.
16:52
So she was living with her producer, Anton Sanko, and she had
16:56
been used to having a separation between business and personal life, and now they
17:00
were recording at home. And as we all know, with this pandemic,
17:04
there's a difference between putting on the suit and staying home in the boxer shorts
17:08
and drinking cold coffee in the studio in your room. So this was a
17:14
little disconcerting for her, and I think she felt stifled creatively because you know,
17:18
everything was in the same place, the personal, in the business,
17:22
and so it did affect her, and I think that it affected how she
17:27
felt about working with that same individual. Three singles from the album Book of
17:33
Dreams Tired of Sleeping Men in a War. Book of Dreams reached the top
17:37
ten on the US mainstream in Modern Rock charts. She did get some criticism
17:41
for this track. Why was that? You know, I think we put
17:45
our artists in a box very often, we brand them just as the labels
17:48
may do. And she was getting this reputation or perhaps earlier as this very
17:53
introspective, you know, kind of serious artist who thinks about everything she says.
17:59
Now, this song was not a superfluous lyric. It did not have
18:02
beat, but it was it did have a pop kind of fun feel.
18:04
The video was really fun. She was wearing kind of camp clothing on the
18:08
video and there are a lot of commentary about that, and so it kind
18:11
of made some critics go, oh, well, she's not to be taken
18:15
seriously, and like I said, a lot of times artists get typecast.
18:21
Yeah, and she was supposed to be the philosopher, the progressive poet,
18:25
and sometimes when you deviate from that path, you get demonized. Yeah.
18:29
But I think it's a lovely song. I think it's a really fun and
18:32
light song. And I love the accompanying video. I love it too.
18:36
But she loves she likes to stretch out musically, lyrically, and that's what
18:40
she does. On ninety two ninety nine point nine Fahrenheit Degrees, a new
18:45
producer, Mitchell Froom, and we hear Suzanne embrace a more electronic experimental sound.
18:49
It reached number eighty six in the US, number twenty in the UK.
18:52
A few modern rock hits from this album, The title track reached number
18:56
thirteen. Blood Makes Noise a number one US on rock track. What is
19:02
Blood Makes Noise about? Well? She has explained and separately that it exemplifies
19:07
a feeling of fear and anxiety that originates when you're not communicating well, and
19:12
so that message is kind of echoed in this looping instrumental background. Now Froom
19:18
as a producer, he was very careful when he had his original meetings with
19:22
Susanne came with almost like like skamatas he might give to an engineering student or
19:27
something. He had everything planned out, and he knew that she wanted to
19:32
take things in a different direction, and she wanted to get the ideas that
19:34
were in her head calculated in a more electronics sophisticated form compared to how she
19:40
did things prior to that. Now she has started writing poetry as a very
19:44
young girl, she was very conscious of language. And you even think Blood
19:48
makes Noise, What a fascinating title. Yeah, it really makes you think.
19:52
When you think about Susanna as a poet, I think she's relatively drawn
19:57
to abstraction. She's drawn to poetry, the devices of poetry, inner rhymes
20:03
and alliteration and metaphor. So this was kind of a combination of that,
20:07
plus these new electronic sounds. By the way, I Love in Liverpool might
20:15
be my favorite, although I love Blood Makes Noise. I pick out the
20:18
songs that I love from each album and ask you about them. So if
20:22
everybody's wondering, there's a mess in Liverpool was about a crush that she had
20:26
when she was a camp counselor. I know she talked about it in concert.
20:30
I was watching the show she did last year at a jazz festival and
20:33
she introduced it and talked about it. Yeah, that's so cool. I
20:37
love those teen proshes. Yeah. So there's a four year gap between this
20:41
album and the next. Nine. Objects of Desire comes out September of nineteen
20:45
ninety six, and this is her fifth studio album, number forty three in
20:49
the UK ninety two in the US. One critic hailed the album, saying
20:53
it was comparable to the Beatles Revolver. That's pretty impressive. The singles are
20:59
Caramel, The very Catchy, No Cheap Thrill, and World Before Columbus.
21:04
Susanna said that Cannamel is one of the songs she's most proud of. Can
21:07
you talk about this one? The Latin vibe of the song, one particular
21:12
song from the mid sixties she's channeling on this track, right, girl,
21:15
Famipanima, what a great song. Antonio Carlostjo Bean was a Brazilian genius who
21:22
wrote wonderful songs and really introduced a lot of Americans to a completely different style
21:27
of music and vibe. So it was sung by a young singer named Astrid
21:32
Gilberto who was very shy and not necessarily wanting to be in the studio,
21:36
but she had this very warm voice, and it was a kind of voice
21:40
that was not melodramatic. It was just really similarly to Susannah's kind of voice
21:45
where you could concentrate the lyrics because the voice was so expressive but non intrusive,
21:51
and so Girl Fami Beneva, like I said, it opened this window
21:53
to what we might call world music, which is not really a fair descriptor
21:57
when you think about it, kind of clumps everything together. But anyway,
22:02
Estra's phrasing was very subtle, allowing the lyrics to shine through. And I
22:07
believe that when Suzanne wrote Caramel it was as a result of loving that kind
22:11
of music, because her voice is also warm and sultry, and it leaves
22:15
emotional space for the story. And both of the songs carry this little bit
22:21
of mystery, like something's held back, and they both speak of fantasy,
22:25
and there's a seductive Latin beat that underlies both stories. If you hear Girl
22:30
from Banima, you don't know exactly, doesn't describe exactly what she looks like,
22:33
but you imagine the beach and you can put your own picture in I
22:37
think it's the same thing with Caramel. She holds back on a lot of
22:41
details and we get to imagine some of those details, but we do know
22:45
she's vulnerable, and I think that comes through very clearly and again stretching out
22:51
doing things different. The sound of her music is changing as she goes from
22:56
album to album, and there's a best of release in nineteen eight, and
23:00
then Suzanne returns with songs in Red and Gray, released only a few weeks
23:03
after Nine to eleven reached number one, seventy eight in the US one in
23:07
the UK. The top ten adult alternative radio track. The Widows Walk is
23:14
on their last year's Troubles and Penitent Penitant and I'll Never be Your Maggie May.
23:21
I love that that's a reference to this Rod store. I'm assuming is
23:25
that kind of actually a really old theme British theme about some character named Maggie
23:32
May. So it's kind have been recycled, I believe over the years.
23:34
But yeah, yeah, Rod also made it a really famous portrait. Cool.
23:40
Yeah, you note the vocals on Widows Walk. You're right, it's
23:42
in the chorus that she elicits goosebumps. Can you talk about what and who
23:47
she's singing about in this song Widow's Walk, Well, here she gets really
23:52
really honest and emotional. This is this song about her divorce from Mitchell Filmo
23:57
had been a producer, and she uses a sinking ship as a metaphor,
24:02
and the lyrics are absolutely haunting, very visceral, very honest. She sings,
24:07
though I saw it's splinter. I kept looking to the sea, and
24:11
then she says, and I knew the ship was empty by the time it
24:15
hit the rocks. So again, like you can hear the inner rhymes,
24:18
she says, though I saw it's splinter. It's a really beautiful line.
24:22
She's using alliteration and so she's threading these poetic devices through this song. She
24:30
also makes great use of dynamics. She doesn't always do that, but in
24:33
this song you can hear in the chorus of the use of dynamics as compared
24:37
to the verses, and her vocal range is rich throughout, but there's that
24:44
unique intensity in the chorus and it just pulls the verses all together. And
24:48
fans really related to this song. One of them said her power is in
24:52
her ability to express unbelievable pain without self pity. Or drama and the other
24:59
thing. I think the song felt like it was in a real time.
25:03
You know, it's first person, and every phrase rings true and realistic.
25:07
And I believe anyone who was watched something precious slip away can appreciate her observations.
25:15
Six years passed before the next studio album, which is studio album number
25:18
seven, Beauty and Crime, releasing the summer of two thousand and seven,
25:22
hits one twenty nine in the US one twenty seven in the UK, wins
25:25
a Grammy for Best Engineered Album Non Classical, and this is under a new
25:30
label, the legendary jazz label Blue Note. Records four singles from it,
25:33
including Frank and Ava, which reaches number twenty on the Adult Alternative Charts and
25:37
number sixty five on the UK charts. The other singles Ludlow Street, Unbound
25:42
and Pornographer's Dream You Right. The album wouldn't simply be a rose colored love
25:48
story per se about New York City. It would play out with a raw,
25:52
unconditional perspective with Beauty and Crime Vega mirrored and mapped out the Temptations as
25:57
well as the darkest called the Sacks of Her Hometown. These are new original
26:03
songs, but they've got an old style orchestration. It seemed like the start
26:07
of a great relationship with Blue Note, but she's dropped by the label.
26:12
She was shocked by that, so her next album twenty fourteen, Tales from
26:15
the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles. It features the single Fools Complaint,
26:19
released under her own label. Now it's called amens. Okay, what is
26:26
amanuensis? What does that mean? And what has Suzanne said about why she
26:30
chose that name. It was originally a little inside joke because there's the servant
26:36
and then there is the masters, as in recording masters, right, a
26:41
little pun there because I imagine most people know the master is the final,
26:45
you know, finished track, right, But she's kind of used to get
26:48
as oh masters, because I'm the recording artist is a servant to the masters.
26:53
Synonyms are scrivener, transcriber, scriber writer, so that's basically what it
26:57
means in real So she was surprised he was dropped by the label, and
27:03
she had to take stock of her career and make some quick decisions. So
27:07
she went to work using social media to consolidate her fan base and came up
27:11
with the plan some of that plan involved re recording her original Rapporte Fire because
27:17
she did own the copyrights, she just didn't own those recordings. So she
27:22
had the opportunity to reinterpret earlier material, and so she came up with these
27:26
close up series. There were four albums and she redid those songs. Jerry
27:33
Leonard took a big part, her producer took a big part in working with
27:37
her on that, and they've been very successful. There's mixed feelings. There's
27:41
fans and say, oh, now I liked that recording I heard in the
27:45
first place. That's always a tough thing. But then a lot of people
27:48
said, oh, I get to hear these songs reimagined with a fresh look,
27:52
and I thought it was a great way to kind of get over the
27:55
trauma of vand whole experience and say, well, I still own these songs,
27:57
these are my songs, and I'm just gonna do something little different.
28:00
She explained the meaning behind the album's title, Tales from the Realm of the
28:04
Queen of Pentacles. What did she say about that, Well, those ten
28:08
tracks are meant to form a link between body and the spirit, and it
28:14
also alludes to tarot card reading and the content of the album draws also from
28:18
Jungian philosophies. A lot of intense stuff here, and on a promotional video,
28:23
Suzanne said she felt a warmth and connectedness of this album. I saw
28:30
her reformed tracks such as I Never Wear White and she and her produced her
28:34
guitarist Jerry Leonard. They were testing the material out on us. This is
28:38
a local club, and they seemed like very interested in our responses. This
28:44
is kind of a fun thing to be in the audience, and they're like
28:45
really kind of banking on how the audience feels, because what they were doing
28:49
is testing it out and then going back on the studio and refining it.
28:52
And she also did a song Don't on Quirk what you Can't Contain. It's
28:56
like a kind of frenzied words salad, and it was a song on which
29:00
she actually used a sample of Candy Shop by fifty cent. This was a
29:03
new experience for her, and you could understand why she would relate to hip
29:07
hop because she loves rhyme and she loves poetry, but that also was a
29:11
completely new thing for her to do, to sample and other artists. Yeah,
29:15
let's go. In October twenty sixteen, she released studio album number nine.
29:18
It's titled Lover Beloved Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers. It's based
29:23
on the twenty eleven play Carson McCullers Talks about Love, which is about the
29:27
life of McCullers. It was written and performed by Susanne First, who is
29:32
Carson McCullers in second? Can you share what Suzanne said to you about her
29:36
fascination with her? So? Carson McCullers was a Southern writer. She wrote
29:41
The Heartest a Lonely Hunter. She wrote by NaN's short stories. Susanne was
29:45
originally introduced to her work through a short story called Sucker about kids in a
29:52
small town trying to define themselves against the odds, and Carson likes Susanne felt
29:57
like an outsider. Suzanne had experienced a lot of feelings like that growing up
30:03
in Spanish Harlem in New York. And also they had taken similar turns in
30:08
their disciplines. In terms of education, Carson had ventured from music to writing,
30:14
Suzanne went from dance and literature to music as a career. And also
30:18
Carson was sort of androgynous. It was a time at which it wasn't particularly
30:25
well regarded to wear nonfeminine clothing, but she would wear men's suits, and
30:30
Susanne appreciated this kind of androgyny that was ahead of its time. She also
30:36
wrote sometimes from a male perspective. And there was a song, by the
30:40
way, called The Instant at the Hour that Suzanne wrote with Duncan Chic,
30:44
and it was based on one of Carson's short stories. It's about alcoholism and
30:48
it's just striking in his details. So I think she was a major influence.
30:52
And a single from the album We of Me a song about an outsider,
30:56
which Susanne told you she could relate to. What did she tell you
30:59
about that? Yeah? One of the lines is the world is a subtle
31:02
place if you don't believe in anything. That's one of the primary lyrics.
31:06
It was adapted again from the story of Carson mccullor, a member of the
31:08
wedding, and it was about trying to deal with several people at the same
31:12
time, which can result in heighten emotions. The album contains a lot of
31:18
depth. The Wie of Me is actually one of the lighter songs on the
31:22
album. It was added to the original musical that you mentioned and that musical
31:29
proceeded and inspired the album that we also talked about. But it's actually compared
31:34
to a lot of the other songs that were really I would say, ranging
31:38
from bittersweet to tragic, and some of them were very witty. It was
31:42
actually one of the lighter moments that would be, at least for now,
31:47
the last studio album from Susanne Vega. Before I ask you about what's going
31:51
on with Susanne these days, I didn't even ask you. What was the
31:55
first song you heard from her? I think it was Luca. I think
31:59
it wasn't that's such a great entree into her work. And you're first time
32:04
you saw her live? Oh wow, I don't know, eight years ago.
32:08
We're something. Okay, yeah, exactly sure. She's a great performer
32:12
too. She's really great with the crowd, and lately she's had that really
32:16
it was a top hat, right, she loves that of the Broadway stuff.
32:22
I think it's a little her alter ego because she's kind of I think
32:25
she has a little bit of she's a little bit shy. I think I
32:29
think that brings out another Susanne. All right, what about favorite album?
32:34
Favorite song? Oh boy? Oh, I guess so tough? Can you
32:40
call me in two weeks? Part two? Yeah, well, let's go.
32:46
Let's go through. I'm going to read off the titles that just inspire
32:51
you to come up with the decision. Here, let's see the self titled
32:53
nineteen eighty five debut, Solitude Standing, Days of Open Hand, and ninety
33:00
nine point nine Degrees Fahrenheit nine, Objects of Desire, Songs in Red and
33:07
Gray, Beauty and Crime, Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles,
33:13
and the Lasts Lover Beloved Songs from an evening with Carson mccollors. Do
33:16
you go Old? Do you go? Do you go Early Days? Suzanne
33:19
Vega Old School? Or Oh Boy, oh boy? If you had to
33:23
pick one, Desert Island Suzanne Vega disc No, I guess Seldo is standing,
33:30
But you know, it's hard to say, sort of like the guy
33:31
that you like when you're seventeen, you never forget, you know what I
33:35
mean? Days you can't do your mind? Yeah, I mean I did
33:40
love so I thought it was just full of hits. Today it's Solitude Standing.
33:45
We'll go with that. Yeah today, Yeah, call me at three
33:49
in the morning. And favorite song? Do you have one that you just
33:52
immediately love, you just go Yes. Small Blue Thing is just my favorite,
33:58
just an absolute beauty full song. It and when you ask people,
34:02
I asked some people, well what is that song? And oh, my
34:05
goodness, she talks about in the book. People came up with so many
34:07
interpretations. Somebody said, oh, I think it's a fetus. Somebody said,
34:12
oh, I think it's about abuse. There's a line falling down the
34:15
stairs. Somebody said, oh, it's about the world, it's about the
34:20
globe. I mean, it's just brought to mind so many different interpretations.
34:23
But it's an absolutely beautiful song. The pacing, the lyric, the instrumental
34:30
is subtle. Yeah, that's probably my favorite. Actually Small Blue Thing from
34:35
the first album. Has she ever talked about what it's about. She does
34:38
hold a little something back, But I think she actually found this little object,
34:42
like a door knob, and she, you know, she has this
34:45
sense of visual she's very visual, and she was kind of turning it around
34:49
and it just all these images I believe kind of came into her consciousness.
34:52
I don't think it was deliberate, but I think the images started coming and
34:59
you know, all of us have that talent where we take an ordinary optic.
35:02
I was just about to say, I envy that skill and ivy songwriters.
35:07
It's just amazing. It just blows my mind. I think that's why
35:10
we were such fans. How do you come up? I'm annoying, you
35:14
know, you have a doorknob. Can't stop thinking about the Yeah, exactly.
35:22
So, Yeah, what is the latest with Suzanne? I see she's
35:23
on tour from checking out her website, which, by the way, I
35:27
think she's coming around here to Connecticut soon. I think in the fall.
35:30
I really want to see her. Yeah, Yeah, is a tense studio
35:32
album in the near future. I don't have any clues about that. She's
35:38
finishing up in France and then she's going to be touring in the US,
35:45
and then next year in April, she's going to be touring in the cities
35:50
in the US. But she says that she's well, she doesn't say it
35:52
to me, but she's adding more cities, it says on her website,
35:55
So you know, I think more cities will be there. I know she
36:00
loves going to Europe. And she's still promoting an evening of New York Songs
36:05
and Stories, which came out a few years ago, and she's she's performing
36:10
highlights from her repertoire and with commentary. It's kind of a fun album because
36:15
it was recorded at Cafe Carlisle in New York, which is a very she
36:19
she kind of club, and so she went so far as to actually like
36:24
comment to the audience, which is something that she had a little trouble doing
36:28
earlier in her career, but not the last few years. I think she's
36:30
been wanting to see what it's like to get away from the guitar, see
36:34
what it's like to be more of an actor. And of course when she
36:36
did the Carson mcculor's musical, she was able to move and not be with
36:40
the guitar. So I think there's this whole other Suzanne that keeps coming out
36:44
that that's experimenting, and so then talking to the audience, it's just a
36:49
whole other thing. I think she really loves it. But this was sort
36:52
of little quips about each song that we're recorded that are now for posterity.
36:59
It was a little different than some of her other albums where there wasn't any
37:01
of that. She's still pushing forward, still doing things differently. Yeah,
37:07
that's that's cool. So much is covered in the book that so much more
37:10
than what we covered here. Suzanne Vega, every album, every song,
37:14
including Suzanne's Liva. Oh oh, and I have one little go ahead,
37:19
go ahead? Oh well, I know this is the upcoming appearance for you,
37:22
right, yes it is. Let's let's let's do that first. Then
37:24
we'll let the book go ahead. Okay, So I'm going I'm going to
37:29
Manchester, UK for the Louder Than Words Best in November tenth through twelve,
37:36
and I'm going to be doing two things. Are going to be moderating a
37:38
talk with John Phillips Channel who was who has been Tory Amos's arranger for thirty
37:44
four years and it's still going and as well as with so many other acts,
37:47
I'll be moderating his talk about being an arranger. And I'm also going
37:52
to be doing my own talk on Sunday, November twelfth about writing and all
37:55
things connected to that and interviewing and all that fun stuff. I love that,
38:00
looking forward to it. So come down, you know, bring your
38:02
mac it's going to be raining. Probably. Well, how are you feeling
38:07
about it? You little nervous to get on stage? Or ah? Well,
38:10
you know what's so interesting is I've been interviewing people and I've been interviewed
38:15
like we are today and right now. What an experience. It's different,
38:21
whole different thing. I know. Every time I'm a guest, I feel
38:23
like you're not behind the driver's wheel. So you're kind of like, I'm
38:28
not sure where we're going to go with this. Yeah, completely different experience,
38:31
but I love it. It's it's great. Let's get back to plugging
38:35
the book. So is it out now? Susan Vega? Every album,
38:37
every song, it is out in the UK. It's it's going to come
38:40
out in the States a little bit later, and it's available on Amazon.
38:45
And I'm on Facebook and Twitter and it's Instagram, right something. I think
38:52
you're on Instagram. I think we are connected on Instagram, I believe.
38:57
And so we're going to have our publisher at the booth in Manchester. So
39:01
it's always fun for me as a writer to because a lot of people will
39:06
say, oh, yeah, I've heard a few songs from that artist,
39:08
but you know, where do I go now? And so it's always fun
39:12
to be in that situation and say, well how about this one. Yeah,
39:15
it's always fun. And the publisher, by the way Sonic Bond,
39:20
Yes, who I've had a great relationship with since I started this podcast.
39:22
Will Stephen Lamb be there? He will indeed, Yes, tell Stephen I
39:27
said, hoot, thank you. Yeah, he's been on. He's been
39:30
on once to talk about his book on Yes. So yeah, it's it's
39:32
all covered in the book, not just the studio albums, but live albums,
39:36
her series of acoustic albums. You covered all her guest appearances, compilation
39:40
albums. It's a must for all Suzanne Vega fans. It's out now through
39:45
Sonic Bond. You can get it in the US through Amazon when it's out
39:47
in the US, but in the UK burning Chat. I'll put the links
39:51
up on the show notes page and can find John Lynne on Facebook, Twitter.
39:54
We could put the links up as well for that perfect All right,
39:59
Lisa, thank you so so much. Great to have you back on and
40:00
until next time. You got to write another book so we can have you
40:05
back Okay, tonight. Thanks Lie. So this was awesome. Bye bye.
40:20
That's it. It's in the books.