AN AUDIENCE WITH...
SUZANNE VEGA
The quintessential New York singer-songwriter on rats, remixes, “Luka” and Lou Reed’s softer side
Interview by SAM RICHARDS
Vega today: “You write a song because you have to write it”
EBRU YILDIZ
“I spend so much time on my lyrics. And what am I known for? ‘
Da da da-da/Da-da da-da
’!”
“WE write about what we know,” says the ever-wise Suzanne Vega, on a Zoom call from NYC. And having lived in the Big Apple for most of her life, one thing she certainly knows about is rats. “They’re swarming in Barzini’s/They’ve got nothing to eat”, she raps on surprisingly punky recent single “Rats”. “Like the gangs in West Side Story/They’re fighting in the street”.
It’s the friskiest Suzanne Vega tune since DNA remixed “Tom’s Diner” 35 years ago, though she is yet to spot much dancing in the aisles at her shows. “People are mostly sitting in shock with their mouths hanging open, like, ‘What is she singing about? Ew, why?’ I don’t even want to tell you all the things that didn’t make the song.”
Hopefully there’ll be more cutting loose by the time her tour reaches the UK later this year. But for anyone wrong-footed by the lead single, it’s worth noting that forthcoming album Flying With Angels also covers some more familiar ground, with Vega continuing her lifelong mission of telling simple truths and giving a voice to the voiceless.
“Everybody in these songs is struggling with one thing or another,” she tells us. “The album has the atmosphere of the Covid years, and nothing’s been righted yet. Nothing’s healthy and blooming and growing, everything feels like it’s a catastrophe that we’re still dealing with. Things are out of balance and they have to be righted somehow.” She agrees that music can play an important role. “But you write a song because you have to write it. You don’t write it thinking, ‘Oh, this will definitely help the environment…’”