#183
May 1985
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Genre: Folk Rock/Indie
4.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Marlena on the Wall
Small Blue Thing
Undertow
Some Journey
The Queen and the Soldier
Dammit, the nostalgia.
I’ve never noticed until just now, listening to “Cracking” for the first time in 30 years, just how reminiscent of Laurie Anderson Vega can be.
I don’t remember how this album entered my life. I *think* it might have been because I was at a party where I heard Suzanne’s brother was. Or maybe that was after.
No matter.
I used to listen to this at my parents in the summer of 85, on the turntable in the downstairs family room of the house to which they moved when I left for college. I had no room of my own, why would I need one? I had moved out. Such was my adolescence. (There’s more to this story, believe me. It has to do with never really having a space of my own, which could be why I have moved 13 times in the 32 years I’ve lived in LA)
“I wish I could write songs like this.” I would say to whoever was in the room, especially during the spectacular wordplay of “Marlena on the Wall”. Not being a songwriter, or even knowing how to play an instrument, save for 6 months of guitar lessons when I was 12.
I put “Undertow” on every mixtape for a year, at least I think I did. It feels like I should have…
“The Queen and the Soldier” brought me to tears as a young man, and now, as an older man, it chokes me up for different reasons and in different ways.
I loved this record.
But, did I love it because it touched me or was it something that touched others and I longed for that connection to others, acceptance from them? Isn’t that what much of this album is about and doesn’t that mean it’s a reflection of the listener as well as a voice for that same listener.
In this case, the listener is me.
Is it good? Is it brilliant? Is it honest?
Yes.
Not quite.
Definitely.
Certainly better than a lot of offerings of late of similar singer-songwriters. She comes FROM the Laura Nyros of the world but she sounds more like she is the egg from which the Ani Difrancos will spring.
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