Suzanne Vega

Welcome back, Kwackman.

I'm not and "old Towie", but I'm an old fan (in 2 ways) from the eighties. I fell off the wagon for 15 years or so, and I came back last year, and I've been enjoying the heck out of all the great music Suzanne has been making. So you must be awaiting her arrival in the Emerald Isles, I take it? Enjoy! She's never sounded better. (she looks great too, especially with those glasses).

Ed

Post edited 8:24 pm – June 3, 2010 by Kwackman

Quote BobKing

"Howdy, Kwackman! Yes, I remember the meer.net days of the old Undertow — and even before that, when the list was hosted at some university (Emory?). "

Hmm, I do remember moving from a university host, but I thought that was meer.net – ah well, my memory failing me!

I do remember your name from yonks ago.

I wasn't kwackman back then, I can't remember who I was!

Quote Islandflyer

"So you must be awaiting her arrival in the Emerald Isles, I take it? Enjoy! She's never sounded better. (she looks great too, especially with those glasses)."

Even without the glasses, trust me! Here's a story I've never admitted to before!

I'd seen her (in pre towie days) in Belfast a couple of times, must have been 85ish? Then went to see her in Dublin as a towie. Her book "Passionate Eye" had just come out (or I'd just got my hands on one) and thought I'd try my luck at getting it signed.

Now, it wasn't a big venue, so I went to one of the local stage crew and asked them to get her to sign it. I told them to tell her it was for a towie. The guy looked at me  "A what?".  I convinced him I did say towie, he took the book but looked at me really strangely. I figured he wouldn't pass the message on! But out he came looking even more surprised and asked me to come on through.

Next thing I was in Suzanne Vega's dressing room. just  the 2 of us. Very weird, and I'm sure it wouldn't happen today. I  had wanted to ask her about a line in "Solitude Standing" "I never thought I'd find you here", what did it mean? Suzanne very kindly answered, but to my shame I was distracted by the fact that she was very pretty close up. I kept thinking that the covers of LPs and press shots didn't do her justice, she was stunning in "real life". Then I realised she'd finished talking and I'd missed the answer. I was so embarrassed I didn't ask her again, went very red and mumbled thanks and left.

Djurdica, we may be old, but our memory is not THAT bad… Of course I remember you, and UncWilly and bluey (and his boyfriend) and many other 'ancient ones'.

I remember 9/11 on Undertow… It was a hectic time, with heated debates about world politics and excited discussions about the coming SiRaG. I was between academic years, gone on a 2-week trip that disconnected me from reality, and when I came back I had almost 3000 Undertow emails to read… which broke the camel's back and I left Undertow until after my graduation.

Anyways, the point was 'welcome back!', if that wasn't clear

Yuval =8-)

{{ Bob }} Welcome back.   And hellos to Cam and Djurdica and Stinasfan.  I wasn't around when y'all started towies trees, but I'm glad you did, and glad to have you back.  Peace, Ra

A connection between Pornographer's Dream and Priscilla? Hmmm…. never occurred to me.

By all means, I'm sure everyone here would love to read your take on the connections between Suzanne's songs! It's been a while since we've had a good discussion of substance about Suzanne's poetry.

Yuval =8-)

I shot you an email on that one Ed…

islandflyer said:

I've been wondering lately about the "relationship" or "congruence" perhaps, between "Bad Wisdom" and "Men in a War". I don't have anything specifically yet, but I seem to see something there. Any ideas?

Ed

Clearly, "Men in a War" is not just about men in a war, and I've suspected for a while that one of the things it's about is the same thing that "Bad Wisdom" seems to be about (namely, sexual abuse of some sort).

"Men in a War" starts out with lyrics about literal combat amputation, then goes all metaphorical with Suzanne's "I know how it is when something is gone" passage, then seems to segue into paralysis ("if your nerve is cut…") before flowing into a more ambiguous passage:

And she lay on her back
She made sure she was hid
She was mute and staring
Not feeling the thing
That she did

The woman who's not feeling the thing that she did might be literally paralyzed and unable to feel, as the prior verse implies. Or she might be living with a tremendous, paralyzing guilt, not wanting to think about and feel the implications of some horrible thing she's done. Or maybe she's being raped, or otherwise assaulted, or perhaps enduring the memory of such an assault, and is retreating inside her mind and forcing herself not to feel it. The song doesn't specify what it is that "she did," or why she wasn't feeling it.

The last possibility reminds me a little of a similar situation in the song/poem "Swarm of Bees" by the New York performance artist Cynthia Hopkins, from a victim's point of view:

I felt paralyzed, like in a dream where you try to run and your limbs are very heavy, like molasses. And I went numb. I remember looking over at the wallpaper and letting it fill my vision and numb my mind. … Because I had, like, a circuit breaker inside my mind. And I could just flip that switch and the little pink flowers on the wallpaper or the light on the ceiling with the fan swirling all around it would become a swarm of bees. We had a cherry tree in the yard and there were bees there and there were pink flowers on the wallpaper and there were bees there too and they became a swarm of bees filling my ears with buzzing and filling my field of vision and whiting out my body and whiting out my mind. And then I'd be floating inside that swarm of bees, hovering above the scene that was actually taking place.

Of course, Hopkins' version (wonderful as it is — I'm a big fan of the albums Accidental Nostalgia and Must Don't Whip 'Um, by her band Gloria Deluxe) is much wordier and much more explicit about what's going on. With so many of Suzanne's songs, there may not be one right answer — and there might even be right answers that she didn't intend.

So, basically, maybe the two songs are related. Or maybe they're not.

Yes, Bob, that seems plausible. Maybe it could be a further exploration of the prostitute in "Neighborhood Girls" then, with more emphasis on the psychic, rather than just the appearance. Similar to how "Porngrapher's Dream" explores the inner mind of the protagonist there.

Yuval mentioned "Straight Lines" in that context also. I had read Suzanne's interview with the old woman across the breezeway from her apartment, and thought it referred to that, and the woman's sense of leaving her own  past, as a free and independent woman, behind her.

Ed