Suzanne Vega 12: Flying With Angels

The first thing one notices about Suzanne Vega’s ninth studio album is that it rocks. Moreso than any of her albums, the drums and guitars have an edge that others didn’t, even with players that usually deliver in other contexts. But she’s always done what she’s wanted, and with the assistance of longtime collaborator Gerry Leonard, Flying With Angels is where she is now.

“Speakers’ Corner” crashes out of the speakers from the first beat, with riffs and “oo” harmonies making it more what we used to call radio-friendly than most of her album openers. The lyrics, while subtle, are timely. The title track has more familiar ambient elements; in fact it sounds like a cousin of “Small Blue Thing” without being a retread in the slightest. “Witch” begins in a similarly ethereal space, but as soon as the main character appears, it spirals into a groove packed with tension and uncertainty; we’re not sure if the attacker is literal or metaphorical, but the damage inflicted is real. So “Chambermaid” is very much a welcome shift, a simultaneous homage and answer to Dylan’s “I Want You”, so much so that he gets justifiable writing credit. But “Love Thief” is completely unexpected, a sexy soul steamer with prominent vocals by Catherine Russell. With the possible exception of the “Tom’s Diner” remix, it’s unlike anything else in her catalog.

Her Sprechstimme approach hasn’t always impressed us, and using that in her tribute to “Lucinda” (as in Williams) might have been specifically to avoid singing like the woman, even when the musical backing could pass for the real thing. “Last Train From Mariupol” is mournful on its own, and moreso when you realize she’s singing about the city in Ukraine that was decimated by the Russians. The instruments used are very effective. “Alley” returns sonically and thematically to the title track, and evocative in its reference to a certain Marc Chagall painting. There’s another sharp turn with “Rats”, but her mostly spoken, breathless delivery of the lyrics let down any promise in the melody of the chorus. It’s an ugly song, which was probably the point, but that even makes the reverie of thwarted courtship at the heart of “Galway” a welcome escape.

Even with all the diversions, Flying With Angels still sounds like a Suzanne Vega album. It certainly doesn’t suffer from sameness, and hopefully her next one won’t take as long to emerge.

Suzanne Vega Flying With Angels (2025)—3½

Suzanne Vega 11: New York Songs And Stories

New York City has been the focus of much of Suzanne Vega’s work, so the idea of a live album dedicated to songs related to the city might seem negligible. However, given how few live albums are in her catalog, much less active, it’s worth exploring, so we are.

An Evening Of New York Songs And Stories presents an intimate café-style performance of 16 songs, interspersed with brief explanations of some of the tunes. Impeccably recorded, with the support of a percussion-less combo, the appreciative audience enjoys some of her more familiar songs, though they likely knew them all. Despite occasional huskiness, she sounds exactly like she did when she first recorded most of these songs. As with the Close-Up Series, some of the “newer” songs benefit from a minimum of production trickery, and also help illuminate songs otherwise overlooked (case in point: “Pornographer’s Dream”). “Ludlow Street” and “Tombstone” are the most ornate, while “Thin Man” uses a prominent dated drum machine. “Tom’s Diner” is again in the style of the bootleg remix, and not a cappella. Covers are a rarity in her catalog, so her rendition of Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” is surprising if not exactly unique. Altogether, it’s a nice diversion, and probably the closest we’ll get to spending an evening with Suzanne Vega.

Suzanne Vega An Evening Of New York Songs And Stories (2020)—3

Suzanne Vega 10: Lover, Beloved

Because we tend to think of popular music as being separate from that designed for the dramatic stage, it’s always a little shocking when we hear of an artist we know from the radio writing a Broadway musical. Unfortunately, ever since Green Day took over the Great White Way, anyone thinks they can do it now.

Suzanne Vega was always more literate than most of her contemporaries, so a one-woman show about author Carson McCullers isn’t too big of a stretch for her writing. Five years after the play debuted, she collected some of the songs she wrote for it on Lover, Beloved: Songs From An Evening With Carson McCullers. Her main collaborator here is Duncan Sheik, who took his particular brand of sensitive pop to great success in this century with big-time musicals like Spring Awakening. Gratefully, there are no show-stopping diva moments on Lover, Beloved, playing instead to Vega’s already established strengths.

That said, the setting dictates that the music be something of a departure. “Carson’s Blues” is a jazzy number with accordion, trombone, and shades of Annie Ross. “New York Is My Destination” has a wonderful piano and clarinet arrangement, but dips every time she ends a verse with an affected “just like me!” (Lou Reed made a career of speaking during his songs; she shouldn’t.) “Instant Of The Hour After” would be familiar to those who picked up one of her Close-Up albums, and its drama is quite welcome here. Strikingly, it’s the most commercial-sounding tune that has the most eyebrow-raising lyrics, as “We Of Me” seems to suggest a romantic or familial triad, while the obsession inherent in “Annemarie” only makes that song that much more powerful.

The prominent banjo on “12 Mortal Men” reminds of recent Tom Waits, fitting for a lyric partially about a chain gang. A timely track considering that Go Set A Watchman had been unleashed only a year before, “Harper Lee” finds the author complaining about her more renowned contemporaries over the vaudeville stagger borrowed from the first track. The title track is another “standard” song, with a pretty melody and gentle nudging, that provides welcome space between the more elaborate settings. To wit: “The Ballad Of Miss Amelia” is something of a mis-fire, distilling one of McCullers’ novellas into a mostly-spoken showpiece complete with a saloon environment. “Carson’s Last Supper” gets back to better surroundings in something of a benediction.

While a little knowledge about the subject’s life and works will certainly illuminate some of the titles and lyrics, Lover, Beloved must stand on its own outside the context of a libretto, and unfortunately, it doesn’t inspire return. As an album it’s shackled to the fate, good or bad, of what sells theater tickets.

Suzanne Vega Lover, Beloved: Songs From An Evening With Carson McCullers (2016)—2½

Suzanne Vega 9: Close-Up

It’s common for musicians to release re-recorded versions of songs. It happened all the time in the standards era, so connoisseurs could compare how Frank Sinatra delivered a tune in his twenties to his approach decades later. Many live albums offer straight reproductions of hit singles and album tracks to adoring audiences. However, in an age when music can be shared and distributed faster, wider, and easier than ever, anytime an artist redoes his or her own music the cynical eyebrow is raised.

Suzanne Vega was very straightforward when she began her Close-Up series, which presented new recordings of her songs, chosen from her entire catalog, released in four thematic volumes. Her reasons were that some of her albums were out of print, and mass consolidation across the music industry didn’t guarantee future royalties from them. Therefore, new, mostly stripped-down renditions of songs she still liked playing would bring another opportunity to gets paid, yo.

We adore her voice, and wish we could hear her sing from the kitchen when it’s her turn to do the dishes, so we admit to a bias. Unlike other singers, her range is the same as it always was, though some of those high notes have been lost to a quarter-century. While some songs sound the same as ever, whether acoustic (“Small Blue Thing”, “Gypsy”) or electrically embellished (“Marlene On The Wall”), it’s more interesting to hear the ones rescued from busy production (“When Heroes Go Down”, everything from Nine Objects Of Desire). But she also keeps “(If You Were) In My Movie” and “Fat Man And Dancing Girl” close to their original clattering arrangements, and not exactly “stripped down”.

Each of the volumes has something to offer, and even had different bonus tracks, depending on where you bought them. Love Songs is the most successful; because it’s the first one, the novelty is new, but it also offers some of her prettiest tunes. People & Places, with its observations and speculations, is a little more embellished, and also has her two most famous songs in “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner”, the latter delivered closer to the style of the bootleg remix. The big draw is a version of “The Man Who Played God”, originally part of a collaboration with Danger Mouse and the late Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. States Of Being covers “emotional turmoil”, and deviates least from the originals, with such embellishments as a string quartet and a new song in the way of the then-unreleased “Instant Of The Hour After”. Songs Of Family would appear to be her most personal songs, being inspired by her daughter, her divorce, her childhood, and her lineage. Mostly back to the original sparse brief, it includes three more produced “new” tracks, two of which were among the first songs she ever wrote.

That’s four albums that revisit most of her previous seven albums, with Days Of Open Hand being the least represented. The way to get it all would be Close-Up Series, a book-style package that includes each volume, plus another disc containing another album’s worth of the bonus tracks offered up on various digital platforms (including a version of “Luka” sung in Spanish), lyrics for every song, and a live DVD. Being a box set it’s on the pricey side, but that’s to be expected.

Suzanne Vega Close-Up Vol. 1, Love Songs (2010)—3½
Suzanne Vega Close-Up Vol. 2, People & Places (2010)—3½
Suzanne Vega Close-Up Vol. 3, States Of Being (2011)—3
Suzanne Vega Close-Up Vol. 4, Songs Of Family (2012)—3½
Suzanne Vega Close-Up Series (2014)—3½

Suzanne Vega 8: Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles

After nearly thirty years and eight albums, Suzanne Vega still has the same clear alto. Clean living is most likely the reason, but taking lengthy breaks between releases most likely helps. Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles follows a seven-year absence of new material, finding her in familiar territory, parables and medieval imagery, with several songs hinting at a Tarot influence.

The album starts strong and stays strong, if brief. “Crack In The Wall” is loaded with poetic metaphors, while the poppier “Fool’s Complaint” is of a musical piece with “When Heroes Go Down” and “(I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May”. “I Never Wear White” melds a bold statement with a punk riff lifted from “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone”. Things finally go quiet for “Portrait Of The Knight Of Wands”, its delicate finger-picking turning to waltz-time in the bridge but not repeating it over the coda. The one everybody talks about is “Don’t Uncork What You Can’t Contain”, thanks to its 50 Cent sample, nod to Macklamore and hip-hop rhythm. We can excuse the Arabian strings, but hearing Our Heroine bust rhymes and exclaim “for real” is just plain jarring.

Syncopated handclaps make “Jacob And The Angel” a continuation of the Eastern theme, but only for a couple of minutes. “Silver Bridge” would appear to be an elegy for her father-in-law, though that’s only an assumption from the dedication and a Google search for the name. (A better, more universal tribute ends in the album in the form of “Horizon (There Is A Road)”, written for Vaclev Havel.) Two songs about stoicism appear back to back; “Song Of The Stoic” is called out as an update of “Luka”, being a monologue by a now-adult victim of abuse, while “Laying On Of Hands” ponders the healing power of Mother Teresa, switching neatly into a faster “Stoic 2” section.

For the first time in a long time, she’s gone back to letting the songs speak for themselves. For the most part, they steer clear of gimmicks, keeping the arrangements simple and clear. Her main collaborator is Gerry Leonard, who brought with him a few other alumni of David Bowie sessions. That’s not to say the album sounds like Bowie, but that Leonard does know a thing or two about sonics, and Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles will not disappoint fans.

Suzanne Vega Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles (2014)—3

Suzanne Vega 7: Beauty & Crime

The Blue Note label, once a venerable home for the best in modern jazz, found themselves well in the black with the surprise success of one Norah Jones, who played piano but wasn’t exactly jazz. Willing to throw the rule book out the window in the 21st century, they signed Suzanne Vega as a free agent, and released her first album in six years. Beauty & Crime finds her in familiar territory, still balancing introspective writing with up-to-date recording techniques.

“Zephyr & I” is the first indication that this wasn’t your grandpa’s Blue Note, and particularly not with a riff borrowed directly from Judas Priest’s “Living After Midnight”. It’s quirky and cute, but immediately surpassed by “Ludlow Street”, a haunting tribute to her departed brother, with a melody that tugs at the heart. “New York Is A Woman” manages to overcome the limitations of that metaphor, though we could do without the Klezmer arrangement that keeps popping up. Similarly, “Pornographer’s Dream” states that figure of speech right away, with a near-lounge delivery that improves by the chorus. “Frank & Ava” is perhaps too literal a comparison for a couple that finds it’s “not enough to be in love”, unless she really is imagining the celebrities of the title, while “Edith Wharton’s Figurines” is more obscure.

A lifelong New Yorker, it’s easy to read sadness into songs like “Bound” (“the way of the world
has taken its toll/ravaged my body
and bitten my soul”), except that in this case, it’s about reconnecting with the man who would become her husband (and remains so as of this writing; good for her and better for him). But it’s followed by “Unbound”, a less successful techno-groove. “As You Are Now” is a tender love song, with sympathetic strings, leading nicely into the final two songs. Both deal with the aftermath of 9/11: “Angel’s Doorway” alludes to the eternal cleanup, while “Anniversary” reflects on the survival of the city as a whole. To her credit, the album ends on an upbeat tempo, rather than a somber one.

There are good songs on Beauty & Crime, but they’re still hidden behind production effects and bigger arrangements. It takes a few listens for those songs to emerge, which may well be one reason why the album, lauded as it was, didn’t sell. And that’s too bad, because we’d happily listen to her sing anything.

Suzanne Vega Beauty & Crime (2007)—3

Suzanne Vega 6: Songs In Red And Gray

While it’s never nice to take pleasure in someone’s pain, this is a perfect example of a performer’s personal turmoil resulting in superior art. Songs In Red And Gray is her Blood On The Tracks—not that it’s even close to the excellence of that album—in that the songs seem to be directly related to her divorce from Mitchell Froom. To take the attitude of finding good in anything, once he took up with blowsy blonde Ally McBeal fixture Vonda Shepard, at least we could take solace that his muddled approach wouldn’t be ruining her albums anymore.

While the album is certainly folkier than the last couple, some of the production touches she picked up over the past decade are still in evidence. Much of that might be ascribed to producer Rupert Hine, best known in the ‘80s for his work with Tina Turner, The Fixx and Howard Jones. Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like any of them.

“Penitent” is a good starting point, suggesting displacement at a crossroads. The rhythm continues on “Widow’s Walk”, which expertly combines the traditional ballad stance of the widow on the shore with well-placed nautical metaphors. A more obvious touchstone is addressed in “(I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May”, wherein our heroine insists that any young suitor would be better off chasing somebody else (with most of her male fans likely willing to take a chance on her anyway). Such an affair is picked apart in with surprising sexual reference in the extremely catchy “It Makes Me Wonder”. Irritation turns to sadness for “Soap And Water”, a heartbreaking lullaby of sorts for her daughter (“Daddy's a dark riddle/Mama's a headful of bees/You are my little kite/Carried away in the wayward breeze”). What happened in “Song In Red And Gray” isn’t as clear, but the unsettlement is tangible.

The lesser half of the album is set up by “Last Year’s Troubles”; unfortunately the techno beats in the mix distract from the cleverness in the words. “Priscilla” is a story that means more to her than us, but at least the sonics don’t irritate. That can’t be said of “If I Were A Weapon” (besides being titularly (?) similar to “(If You Were) In My Movie”, a song that wasn’t that good in the first place). The mystery of the sea returns somewhat with “Harbor Song”, describing an enigmatic dream. “Machine Ballerina” sports two basic melodic themes, one of which sounds like a typical Froom keyboard, the other barely displaying the bitterness in the accusation. “Solitaire” is a little too literal, and again, the scratchy mix is a tired gimmick. The album closes with a cover of a song by a Village fixture who ran a songwriting circle; her delivery makes it seem like one of her own.

Songs In Red And Gray is definitely a return to form, albeit tinged with the mixed emotions that inevitably follow a divorce and custody arrangements. Overall there are enough high points to keep the handful of misses from derailing it.

Suzanne Vega Songs In Red And Gray (2001)—3½

Suzanne Vega 5: Nine Objects Of Desire

Suzanne must have enjoyed working with Mitchell Froom so much on her previous album that she ended up marrying him and bearing his child. So it was that four years passed until the release of her next album. However, married life and motherhood didn’t result in a quality album—or at least not of the standard we’d come to expect.

Much can be blamed on her husband’s penchant for noisy, percussive production. Where her earlier albums presented her voice and music clear and unencumbered, Nine Objects Of Desire is slathered with trendy lounge keyboards and other effects. The overall tone is more harsh than smooth, to the point where the singer takes a back seat to the mix (proof positive that having both Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas from the Attractions as your rhythm section doesn’t always guarantee success).

There are a few moments that work. “Stockings” presents a trademark tale of a mysterious woman, anchored by a smart guitar pattern and colored with a contrasting chorus, but ultimately sunk by an Arabian string section. Similarly, one wonders how much better “No Cheap Thrill” would be in a simpler arrangement without the underwater guitar. “World Before Columbus” is possibly the best track, a love song to her baby daughter treated unobtrusively by the mix. “Honeymoon Suite” is similarly understated, but the autobiographical aspects are a bit loud.

Many of the songs blend together into a generic, jazzy hum—“lounge” being the kitschy trend of the time—as demonstrated on “Caramel”, “Lolita” and “Thin Man”. “Headshots” would appear to tell another intriguing story, and “Casual Match” also sports a catchy self-harmonized chorus, but much of the potential is lost within the effects. While there’s something fetching about the way she sings the chorus for “Birth-Day (Love Made Real)”, it’s so distorted that she’s barely heard. “Tombstone” features an extreme mix, with a cool vocal, but again, it’s interchangeable with any number of Crowded House tracks.

Therefore, Nine Objects Of Desire comes off more as a Mitchell Froom album than a Suzanne Vega album. Maybe she wanted it that way, but one wishes she could have let her songs breathe without all the dressing.

Suzanne Vega Nine Objects Of Desire (1996)—2

Suzanne Vega 4: 99.9 F°

With this album Suzanne took a big leap out of folk into pop. While 99.9 F° has a couple of voice-and-acoustic duets, most of the production spotlights a much louder band than the guys she had before. Unfortunately, Crowded House and Los Lobos cohort Mitchell Froom was that producer. Fortunately, he brought along Richard Thompson, session rat Jerry Marotta on drums and Attractions exile Bruce Thomas all over the bass.

Some of the “new” sounds are refreshing, and nicely complement her lyrics, which vary between straight and vague, as ever. “Rock In This Pocket (Song Of David)” is sung from the point of view of Goliath’s opponent. “Blood Makes Noise” was the first single, heavy on the bass and delivered at a speed that doesn’t suit her, really. “In Liverpool” is a melancholy reverie with an expansive arrangement, but the title track goes back to a noisy loop. There’s finally a quiet one in “Blood Sings” (where she’s backed by some of her old band members), but that’s contrasted with the nightmare circus of “Fat Man And Dancing Girl”.

“(If You Were) In My Movie” is unnecessarily parenthetical and a little underdeveloped. “As A Child” is more appealing, and the same can definitely be said about “Bad Wisdom”. Compared to the first song on her previous album, it’s another song directed at a “mother”, only this time something has definitely gone wrong in the person’s life. With all the talk of blood and doctors on the album, and the climate in which it was created, AIDS was the assumption, but as it turns out, it’s a different kind of child abuse. Other reviewers have made the Bangles comparison for “When Heroes Go Down”, a wonderfully short pop song that proves she’s sound great singing the phone book. “As Girls Go” could easily be a track off the then-recent Crowded House or Richard Thompson albums, but it’s matched well to her. “Song Of Sand” has a string quartet, and then it’s over.

Again, much of the production gets in the way of 99.9 F°, but it was nice to know she couldn’t be so easily pigeonholed. It’s a short but varied album, and still a pleasant diversion.

Suzanne Vega 99.9 F° (1992)—3

Suzanne Vega 3: Days Of Open Hand

For her third album, Suzanne stuck with the formula, working mostly with her touring band and using Shawn Colvin for the occasional harmony. Days Of Open Hand has too many keyboards and electric elements to be called folk, but it’s not quite pop either. It was, however, worth the wait.

For the most part, the songs seem to be positive, beginning with the determination of “Tired Of Sleeping”. That emotion continues on “Men In A War”, which does a whole lot with two chords. “Rusted Pipe” revives some of the quirky feeling from the first two albums, while “Book Of Dreams” is straight pop; she herself admits she was going for an XTC sound. “Institution Green” is the first political tune on the album, alluding at something terminal that turns out to be the mundane process of voting.

“Those Whole Girls (Run In Grace)” is an interesting exercise on brevity, spoken in three syllables at a time, conjuring up a twisted jump-rope melody, a city observation reinforced on “Room Off The Street”. “Big Space” sports an annoyingly dated keyboard sound, but otherwise hearkens back to the debut. “Predictions” doesn’t really go anywhere, being mostly a litany of arcane and current methods of prognostication, so it’s interesting on that level. A tense Philip Glass string arrangement drives “Fifty-Fifty Chance”, about a suicide attempt, presenting a dynamic pause before “Pilgrimage”, which ends the album with something of a grand finale.

She’d never really have a “hit” again, but at least Days Of Open Hand would satisfy her fans. It’s a nice album to have on in the background while drinking coffee or tea in the privacy of your home, if you have one.

Suzanne Vega Days Of Open Hand (1990)—3

Suzanne Vega 2: Solitude Standing

Folk-rockers are nothing if not socially conscious, so perhaps it wasn’t that surprising that 1987 saw not one but two songs about child abuse hit the airwaves. 10,000 Maniacs asked the musical question “What’s The Matter Here?”, while the more enduring song, for better or worse, was Suzanne Vega’s “Luka”. Set over a lilting E major sequence, the song alternated plaintive picking with a pair of rock guitar solos, and soon took hold of the nation’s collective conscience.

Some have pointed to its success as proof that she was a one-hit wonder, which would almost make sense had she disappeared from the music scene, which she hasn’t. Still, the song led to tons of copies of Solitude Standing flying off the shelves, and indirectly helped Shawn Colvin get a record deal, as she sang backing vocals on the track.

The album complements her debut, with similar production and songwriting, and offers more consistency in the way of her touring band appearing throughout. But just to show she’s original, the first thing we hear is “Tom’s Diner”, a view of the street sung a cappella. “Ironbound/Fancy Poultry” presents another urban portrait, the two sections working together to underscore the “selling” of body parts. “In The Eye” would appear to be written either from the point of view of a crime victim or jilted lover, but somehow her delivery isn’t convincing. (Maybe that was the point.) “Night Vision” is a slightly unsettled lullaby.

The title track a moderately adventurous attempt to personify solitude, was released as a single, but didn’t really take hold. “Calypso” is sung from the point of view of the nymph who imprisoned Odysseus, and according to the notes on the sleeve, was as old as “Gypsy”, a tender little love song from a different angle. “Language” comes in between, and probably works better as a poem than a song. The last big production is “Wooden Horse (Caspar Hauser’s Song)”, the subtitle referencing the mystery surrounding a German youth from the early part of the 19th century, the length slowly building interest in his story. A wind-up instrumental version of “Tom’s Diner” closes the set.

Synthesizers being what they were in those days, Solitude Standing does suffer from its dated production, which is probably one reason why she’s been re-recording most of her catalog with more basic arrangements lately. The album is still her biggest hit, which is understandable.

An amusing footnote came a few years later when an indie producer started circulating a bootleg remix of the “Tom’s Diner” vocal enhanced by a trendy dance beat. Such a jarring juxtaposition actually worked, and A&M released it as a single. After becoming something of a viral phenomenon (before that term was common), a collection of similar remakes was issued with Suzanne’s consent. Tom’s Album featured both versions from Solitude Standing as well as the remix, another remix by the same people of a different Vega song, a few foreign-language attempts, and a couple of rap versions. The best track was a toss-up between a parody based on I Dream Of Jeannie and a live pseudonymous improv by R.E.M. with Billy Bragg.

Suzanne Vega Solitude Standing (1987)—3

Suzanne Vega 1: Suzanne Vega

There was something of a Greenwich Village folk revival in the early ‘80s, which started to gain a little attention with the advent of hippie nostalgia. But before that kicked in, Suzanne Vega put out her self-titled debut on the then-respected A&M label.

Her voice isn’t striking so much as pleasant, a slightly breathy alto with an occasional streetwise cool. What brought her attention was her simple guitar picking and somewhat poetic lyrics, which abound on Suzanne Vega.

“Cracking” begins with a simple, pretty picked guitar line, soon backed by synths. The verses are mostly spoken in rhythm without much melody, until the very last verse, where it just begins to soar. “Freeze Tag” continues the edgy, wintry feeling, lifted just a bit by “Marlene On The Wall”. With its energetic backing, it was a moderate hit, a clever portrayal of various failed relationships as observed by a photograph. The vulnerability re-emerges on “Small Blue Thing”, riding the line between literal and figurative. “Straight Lines” sports jagged motifs to match the image of a woman cutting her own hair, and may or may not be a self-portrait.

“Undertow” begins gently, then soon becomes a rather disturbing picture of obsession. (Sarah McLachlan must’ve loved this one.) The standout track is “Some Journey”, from its opening stridently strummed to the accompaniment of Mark Isham’s keyboards and Darol Anger’s violin (both Windham Hill artists at the time). The arc of the song is expert, starting with imagining another time and place before being deposited firmly in the disappointing present. “The Queen And The Soldier” would appear to be the most “folk” song on the album, considering its structure and medieval subject matter. The dénouement isn’t very satisfying, but it’s still memorable. The image of a queen has a very different meaning in “Knight Moves”, where a relationship is viewed in the context of a chess match. And another overheard conversation drives “Neighborhood Girls”, very influenced by the New York City of Lou Reed, chasing a tangent to an extreme before being reeled back to the start. (She performed this once with the Grateful Dead, and the fit was perfect.)

We first discovered this album in the wake of her second, which was a much bigger hit. It happened as September finally decided to turn to fall, and the yellowing leaves and graying skies were an excellent backdrop to these sensitive, thoughtful songs. Some of the production (keyboards and slap bass mostly) doesn’t work, but for a first effort, it was exciting.

Suzanne Vega Suzanne Vega (1985)—4