WYEP welcomed Suzanne Vega to our studios on Friday for a Live & Direct Session. The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter visited the station to chat with Rosemary Welsch and perform live on the air, ahead of her show at City Winery that evening.
Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity:
Rosemary Welsch: Suzanne Vega has been kind enough to grace the airwaves here at WYEP. She is playing in town tonight. We'll talk about that in just a little bit. But we don't want to waste any more time. Suzanne, if you would lead off with a tune, we would love that.
“Luka”
Welsch: That song, Luka? I'm sure that people love hearing that song. I mean, that was sort of a career-defining song for you. And kind of an unusual one. I mean, was that something that you pushed to have released as a single? Was it somebody else?
Suzanne Vega: It was somebody else. It was my manager, Ron Fierstein. He heard that song at a soundcheck that I did in 1984. And he asked me some questions about it, and he said, “Is this about what I think it is?” And I said, “What do you think it is?” And he said, “I think it's about child abuse.” And I said, “Yes, it is.”
So he said, “I think that song could be a hit.” And I was like, “Are you kidding me?” Because it wasn't the kind of song that people rejoiced to hear. Usually people looked puzzled. Once they figured it out, they looked unhappy when I was playing it, you know, out and about back then. But he said he thought it was a song about an issue. He thought it was an important issue, and he felt that the 80s needed more songs about issues. And so we produced it to go on the radio. It took two years for them to finish up the production, and it worked.
Welsch: In preparing for this, I was going back through all the different releases that you've put out over the years. You have a huge catalog at this point in time. So I'm going through it and thinking, “Oh, I forgot about this song. I love this song. I haven't heard it in so long.” And I'm wondering, as you're preparing to go out on the road and you're deciding what it is that you're going to play, are you going through the same thing and thinking, “I forgot about this song,” or “I have to relearn this song?”
Vega: Yeah, sometimes. To be honest, there's a core of about seven songs that every audience likes to hear, and I don't like to leave any of those particular songs out, because no matter where I go, everybody wants to hear those songs. If I leave out one of them, someone's disappointed, so there's always that. And then there's the sort of other songs that, Yes, from time to time, I've had to relearn them, over the years. Sometimes I don't even bother to play them anymore. And Jerry Leonard plays them, because it's just easier for me for him to do it and for me to sing. So that happens too.
Welsch: But you rerecorded so much of your music. What was this, like, 12 years ago? Fifteen years ago? You you went back and just, you didn't do all of them. You were selective about what you rerecorded.
Vega: Yes. That was an exciting project for me. I had been dropped by Blue Note, and I was trying to figure out what to do after that. This was probably 2007, 2008, and I decided to start my own record company and rerecord most of my back catalog. I decided rather than doing it for note for note, that I would do stripped down, more acoustic versions of the songs that I really liked and felt that stood up over time. So that became the “Close Up” series, and that's for four volumes. And instead of doing it album by album, decided to do it by theme.
So we have Volume One is the sort of classic Suzanne Vega songs. The second Volume Two is people and places. Volume Three is the weirder stuff called “States of Being.” So it's like “Blood Makes Noise” and all the really weird stuff. In case you are not in the mood for that, or in case you are in the mood for that, in which case you have them all in one place. And then the last Volume Four turned out to be all these really folky songs about family. That's how that just fell. So it all exist right there, and it gives me a way of owning my own masters and being able to do what I want with them. And I found that to be really helpful.
Welsch: You mentioned “Blood Makes Noise.” I'm trying to imagine what that even sounds because that was such a produced record, “99.9 Fahrenheit.” So you have to totally reimagine this then?
Vega: We did. Actually, it's Jerry who had to reimagine the whole thing. And when I first gave it to him to perform, he said, “No, no, I don't think I want to do this,” because I used to do it just with Mike Vsceglia on bass. So it used to be live. We would do it with me doing the vocal and Mikey just doing the bass part. So when I gave it to Jerry, he did reimagined the whole thing. We're not doing it on this tour, but if you want to hear what that sounds like, that is on Volume Three.
Welsch: So everybody who gets to a certain age knows that your voice changes over years. It generally drops for some people who say, you know, if you're Marianne Faithfull, it's a totally different voice. As I'm listening to your voice, I think it hasn't changed as much as many other people that I've heard. But still, you know your voice differently now than you did when you recorded these songs 30 or 40 years ago.
Vega: Yes, it's been interesting, and definitely my speaking voice has dropped and dropped and dropped. I mean, sometimes in the hotel rooms, I'll call for room service and they'll say, yes, Mr. Vega, just kind of weird. But over the years, I started to actually study voice. A couple of years ago, I was having trouble with my breath. And so I started to work with this really gifted teacher in New York. For a while, once a week, I was having voice lessons. I've discovered an upper range, which has been really fun to explore that. Actually, to be honest, that started back in 2016 with the Carson McCullers project when I worked with Duncan Cheek, he said, “Why do you keep singing down here? Why don't you sing up here?” He says, “You're so vulnerable when you sing up there.” And I was like, “Yeah, okay, I like you and you're vulnerable too, but that was not reason enough for me to do it.” But I found that I enjoyed singing those higher notes, and now I find I can actually do it with confidence.
Welsch: I think it's interesting that Duncan would have suggested that you'd be vulnerable on a project about Carson McCall, who was clearly a very vulnerable person.
Vega: Yes, yes. So what he said actually had merit. I was just sort of teasing him. Some of those notes I remember in the beginning thinking, “No, no, I'll never I'll never master this melody,” because he wrote the music and I wrote the melody and the lyrics. But he really pushed me out of my comfort zone, and now I'm more comfortable there.
“Flying with Angels”
Welsch: We are here with Suzanne Vega and Jerry. We should. We should mention Jerry Leonard is also here playing the guitar. New song. I hope that means new release?
Vega: New album? Yes, I hope so, too. I have eight or nine songs finished now, so we're using this tour to throw them all into the set. Some of them make it to the VIP, soundchecks, some of them make it into the encores, and some of them make it into the set. So there's a bunch of new material, and we hope it will come out either later this year or early next year.
Welsch: That's a good thing to look forward to. I always forget that you were originally from Santa Monica, Cali., like originally —
Vega: A good thing to forget. I forget it myself. I lived there for two years when I was a baby. And then my family, my mother and my stepfather took me to New York City when I was two and a half, where I have lived ever since.
Welsch: You have quite the relationship with that city. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about it. You dedicated a show to it, and you recorded it, I do believe.
Vega: Yes. That was called “New York Songs and Stories,” and it was recorded at the Carlyle Cafe, which was a super swanky place on the Upper East Side. It was a lot of fun and yeah, it was great.
Welsch: I have to ask you about one of the songs that you did for that. Any time that you're going to cover another artist material, I assume it's because you have something to say about it. Something that's new for you, and that's Lou Reed's “Walk on the Wild Side.” I mean, that's a song to take on.
Vega: Yes, I thought so, too. I knew Lou Reed throughout my life, and we were friends for a very long time. And he passed away. After he passed away, there started to become all of these memorials. We got invited to a fair amount of them. So I would say I would like to do this song, I'd like to do that song. And all of those songs were all taken. The one that was never taken was always “Walk on the Wild Side.” So Jerry and I learned it. I felt I had the right to sing it, you know, for various reasons. And now, yeah, we do. We sing it.
Welsch: Would you be the same writer, singer, performer without New York City?
Vega: I would have different subject matter. If I did not live in New York City, I think I would still be myself. There are still other areas of life that I cover. The second area that I write about is usually water, like the ocean. Other bodies of water. So I probably would have found a way to write somehow and would still probably be my sensibility. But, you know, New York is a hell of a place to grow up. Yes, of course, it's very influential.
Welsch: Well, this song that you just played for us, you are in New York City during the pandemic. There had to be just such an unsettling experience because everything changed, especially in New York, where everything seems to be going, going. And then it stops.
Vega: Yeah, a time like no other. I certainly, in all my years, had never experienced anything like what happened, especially in New York. We went from being the city that never sleeps and all this stuff. I was actually doing a play Off-Broadway when it actually hit. We had to get all our stuff from the theater, and we just had to go home. And I remember asking everybody, “How long is this going to go on for?” And they said things like, “Make sure you have medication for two weeks.” So we're like, “Oh, two weeks. Okay.” And then of course, there were all these issues with, you know, groceries. How do you get groceries? We were all cleaning our homes and disinfecting everything, and the streets were weirdly empty and silent, except for all the ambulances constantly going. We were hit pretty, pretty hard right away. And it transformed the city almost overnight. Drastically. It was terrifying.
Welsch: Do you think it brought out a sense of empathy and people?
Vega: Sometimes. Sometimes not. People were fighting over toilet paper. People were fighting over groceries. I remember finally, once I figured out Instacart and all this sort of thing, I put in an order. And it came the week after. When the guy came with the bags of groceries, half the stuff was missing and he was pleading. He said, “Please don't give me a bad review. I depend on this job, you know?” And of course I was like, “No, no, it's fine. I'm glad to get anything.” So we didn't know how long that was going to go on for. So it brought out the best in some people, but it also did not bring out the best in some people.
Welsch: In shifting here a little bit and talking about going on and on. Here we are, you and I are very close in age and mid-sixties, and this is a point where you start getting questions about like, “Well, are you going to continue to do what you do? Are you still relevant?” That sort of thing. How about where you are right now? I feel like a lot of times it's like I'm just figuring things out. I really have a lot to say. Do you find yourself at that point of saying, I have a lot to say, and is there any benefit to being at this point in your career?
Vega: Yeah, of course there is. That whole question of “Are you relevant?” I mean, honestly, I had not even thought about that. I was like, “Yes, of course I'm relevant. I'm writing about right now. I'm writing about what happened to my city. I'm writing about what I know.” This album seems to be a very real album, as opposed to I wrote an album about 10 years ago, which was much more metaphoric and spiritual. This is not like that. This is about real things. I figure I'm just going to keep going. I have great role models. I know Judy Collins. I'm friends with her, and she's exquisite, and she's 83 years old and she sounds as beautiful as ever. And I love Patti Smith. And she's out there as powerful as ever. So I feel like I've got nothing to stop me except myself.
Set list:
Luka
Flying with Angels
Caramel
Interviewer: Rosemary Welsch
Engineers: Thomas Cipollone, Tom Hurley
Note: The name of Suzanne Vega's song "Luka" is spelled incorrectly in this video. We regret the error, but hope you enjoy the song.
