Suzanne Vega - Pop/Folk Diva
By: Dominick A. Miserandino
Suzanne Vega is known most popularly for songs like Luka and Tom's Diner. She's not as well known for her interest in writing, her family history and being the mother of the MP3. That's the part of her life that we decided to focus on.
DM) The more research I did on you, the more I was confused. I saw tangents like, your song Tom's Diner being the first MP3, discovering your biological father late in life and being a freelance writer for the New York Times. Certainly not story angles that the pop-folk artist Suzanne Vega is known for, but the stories always focus on pop-icon Suzanne Vega and not the others.
SV) I guess it takes some research. I guess I've made my name in the pop-world which is a relatively one-dimensional world, so the fact that somebody does these other things...
DM) You've made your name in the pop-world but your personality type is...
SV) Is not pop. (laughs) I think that was always true for me. It was kind of a surprise for me. It was not what I was expecting, but I was happy with the success. Perhaps I feel more at home in some of these other worlds that I also inhabit.
DM) Which world do you feel most at home in?
SV) Well, I love writing and writing has always been my first love. Even when I write songs, I feel my strength is in the lyrics and certainly not in some projection and image, like a lot of pop girls who do very well. I feel very happy in the world of writing and the world of raising my daughter.
DM) Do you also enjoy the journalistic-type of writing that you recently did for the New York Times?
SV) Oh yeah, that was great fun. It took a while to get done, but I could work slowly, at my own pace and I got good guidance in terms of editing. I had done other pieces for other magazines, so I have been writing for other magazines for a long time.
DM) Would you be happy if writing was your only focus?
SV) I love singing and I love performing. There's something about singing on stage that really compels me. There's something about standing on stage and singing that really compels me.
DM) Because writing has a bit of anonymity to it in that you don't see the audience?
SV) I understand that and I'm fine with it and that's one of the reasons that I also like it. I guess I feel compelled to also stand on a stage and sing to an audience. There's something in my psyche that demands me to do
that. When I come back from the road after a tour, I often dream about touring and dream about being on the stage.
DM) How does that reconcile with being a good mother to your daughter?
SV) Well, I can't do the Bruce Springsteen thing, where I'm gone for three years. I end up negotiating a lot, I end up apologizing a lot. I write a lot of love notes to my daughter. I also curtail it to those times of year when she's not in school so we can take her out on the road. When she's in school, I stay at home or maybe do a gig here and there.
DM) I read a quote where she said her Tigger doll was upset at you touring?
SV) She doesn't like me playing guitar because my lap is otherwise occupied, so she got a bit jealous. She's now nine and she just looks at touring as something that mom does. But since Dougie, my drummer, has started giving her drum lessons during the sound check she tolerates it a lot better. When she gets involved in it more, she's a bit more sharing of her mom. At one point, during a sound check, the whole band was playing "Walk this Way" and she was on the drums holding the drum beat down.
DM) Would there be a mother/daughter one day?
SV) Could be I actually had my mother out on tour with me last year. We had a three generation thing going on. I think she liked it so much she thought she should come on every tour.
DM) Hitting another tangent, you said you wonder where it comes from. Your biological father was a musician, as was your mother and grandparents. Is the music in your blood?
SV) Yes, definitely. I do believe you inherit from your parents whether or not you know them, from your blood line too. My biological father's mother was a drummer in vaudeville actually. My grandfather was a trumpet player in that circuit in the mid-west. So far, that could be where it comes from.
DM) Did you ever track down your biological father?
SV) Yes I did. We have a bit of a relationship now. I go out to visit him every so often. I feel that meeting him and getting to know him a bit has helped me make peace with it.
DM) And that history might explain your daughter's interest in drumming.
SV) That had occurred to me. I also find there's a lot of rhythm in the songs that I do. In terms of the words of my songs. I feel that that's been a strength that I had.
DM) Now for the last big tangent I had, you're song "Tom's Diner" was the first song recorded as an MP3.
SV) Yeah, when they were testing the format, they used, "Tom's Diner". I wasn't aware of it at the time, I was just taking my daughter to school and one of the parents of the kids that she went to school with told me about it. She quoted an article in a magazine that called me the "Mother of the MP3".
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