Suzanne Vega
Songs in Red and Gray
A ‘ M Records
Suzanne Vega’s musical career has been strange. A folk singer whose biggest hit was remixed by European DJs before it ever got popular, Vega has been well known for her stark musicality. While she had limited success on the charts, she has achieved more acclaim in recent years, as she has worked to combine her frank guitar with a sensuous sound.
Songs in Red and Gray features Vega’s unmistakable delivery. She’s always found a way to sound as if she is intertwined with the music, as if we wouldn’t get the guitars without her voice and we wouldn’t get her voice without the guitars. To Vega’s credit, while some try to distance themselves from their music (Tori Amos and her attempts to vocally elevate herself above her piano), Vega is grounded by the simplicity of her acoustic guitar.
Yet her ability to follow that guitar wherever it goes is amazing.
Vega first appeared on the scene with “Luka,” sung from the perspective of an abused nine-year-old girl. It was a few years later that “Tom’s Diner,” an a cappella song from Solitude Standing, was remixed by European DJs DNA and immediately became a crossover success. After that, Vega basically disappeared from the charts. She’d had her hit, she’d had her “discovered and remixed” song, and that was pretty much it for her career.
Except she didn’t go away.
On 99.9F, Vega started to debut a new, richer sound. Instead of the androgynous music of her past – she’s alluded several times to abuses that occurred at the beginning of adolescence that may have contributed to her self-presentation – she was suddenly sensuous. Abandoning her total dedication to the acoustic guitar, she experimented with other sounds, including a dabble or two with a slight industrial sound on “Blood Makes Noise.” Then came Nine Objects of Desire. Critics lavished praise on the album, touting Vega’s sudden maturation from a rough-around-the-edges folksinger into something much more specific: a performer who could be both simple and lavish.
Now, perhaps, we might add playful. Songs in Red and Gray features Vega continuing to succeed through her immersion in the simple music that backs her. Lyrically, Vega is a poet – “Tom’s Diner” and “Luka” were popular, yet poetic, hits – and her lyrical rhythm is unmistakable. Instead of forcing syllables into lines where there is room for no more, Vega’s ability to weave her vocalization into the steady repeating rhythms forces the most out of her songs.
“Last Year’s Troubles” is a simple guitar song spiced with mandolins and violins. With a skip and a pop, Vega sings of troubles being “old-fashioned/the robber on the highway/the pirate on the sea.” She is dismissive of our former concerns, noting only that as they’ve become less important, other problems have risen to take the formers’ place. It might be pop music, but the message is downright depressing. “Widow’s Walk” is similarly concerning; Vega is simultaneously lush and stark. Her presentation leaves it up to the listener.
She seems to be constantly playing games. Are her bare lyrics meant to make us submit? Is her verdant lyricism meant to soothe? “(I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May” is a stunning statement of purpose. Vega won’t be left behind; she won’t be forgotten. She’d rather hide forever than be forgotten. She’d prefer to be the one in charge. With a sweet guitar lick, she lulls the listener into a false sense of security before declaring, right away, that she isn’t going to be the woman from the song. Vega just says it, rarely with added saccharine.
But there are times when even Vega, so praised for her brutal honesty, is downright playful. “If I Were a Weapon” is Vega listing her litany of deadly possibilities: she might be a gun, she might be a needle, she might be a pocket-knife, she might be a hammer. Of course, she immediately doubles back on herself; she’s more interested in taking care of the situation facing her. She might be a weapon, but she’d rather be herself.
Such is Vega, a true individual whose music expresses her intense independence. And despite her many masks – she was stark in her early career, she was lush later on – she has rarely stumbled. In her maturation, she’s sampled from a wide variety of musical influences and on Songs in Red and Gray, she’s found an apparent middle ground of incredible results.
