Here is the textual content of the file in question (
http://www.vega.net/ffrose.htm):
Suzanne Vega: Three Songs
By Brian Rose
1982
This is an article from the autumn of 1982, the first year of "The CooP, the
Fast Folk Musical Magazine." I was editing the written part of the record/magazine,
and Jack Hardy, the initiator of the project, was in charge of the recordings.
Most of my articles from that time were divided between light humor (a piece
about my first performance) and ponderous attempts at definition (a piece about
the so-called literary song).
The following article, unfortunately, fits more in the latter category, but it
may nevertheless be of interest to some since it is probably the first serious
thing written about Suzanne Vega and her songs. This was a couple of years
before the New York Times first reviewed one of her concerts, and well before
her debut album on A&M.
I cringe now at my use of the word trilogy to describe the three songs written
about in the article. While it's true that the songs fit together thematically
with broad-brushed medieval images of battlefields, knights and palaces, etc., I
don't see any reason for forcing them into a construct that Suzanne, I'm sure,
never thought about. I do take some satisfaction, however, in that I recognized
"Tom's Diner" as breaking new ground in Suzanne's writing. I still appreciate it
for its "whimsy and sagacity."
Suzanne Vega: Three Songs
By Brian Rose
There are few young songwriters whose work is developed enough to stand much
close analysis. Suzanne Vega, a twenty-three year old New Yorker, is a notable
exception. Several of her songs have been included in past issues of The CooP: "Calypso,"
"Cracking," "Gypsy," and "Knight Moves."
"Knight Moves" is one song of a trilogy that is essentially concerned with the
battle of the sexes and a quest for individual revelation. The first song of the
trilogy, "Marching Dream," sets the mythic stage on which all three songs take
place: "I have dreamed that many men have marched across this field." In this
song, Vega seeks to project the mundane failures of personal relationships onto
a screen of epic and noble proportions. "I have wished that I could hear each
secret told by lovers in the battle with each shade of red and gold." She dreams
of "all men's arms," and wishes to read "the secret writing there" in hopes of
finding an answer to some unnamed burden of self. The wistful desire expressed
in the song is amplified by a lovely melody that almost seems to float on air.
The song closes with the word "listening" repeated several times, but silence
and loneliness is the implied response.
The centerpiece of the trilogy is "The Queen and the Soldier," a sweeping
landscape of a song in which the soldier presents himself before the young queen
"for whom we all kill." The scene between the two characters is drawn with klieg
light clarity--a knock on the door, the soldier states his intention to quit the
battle, and she slowly lets him inside. The sexual implications are obvious as
she leads him down the "long narrow hall" into her room with red tapestries. The
soldier seeks an explanation for the battle raging outside. He attempts to crack
the queen's royal veneer. In a moment of weakness she almost succumbs to his
forthrightness, but out of fear and shame, she turns him away to be killed. The
queen, an austere figure of poignant suffering, will not or cannot reveal the
source of her suffering. We are left with nothing more than an opaque reference
to a "secret burning thread."
The narrative moves briskly, carried on the waves of a waltz melody of exquisite
beauty. Vega's singing conveys child-like innocence and world weariness
simultaneously. She accompanies herself on the guitar with simple arpeggios that
abruptly give way to a rhythmic plucking of the chords in the last verse. "Out
in the distance her order was heard." The staccato picking quickens the dramatic
tempo as the soldier is killed.
The cruelty of the queen's act is made all the more horrifying by her unyielding
resistance to her own conscience and the offers of sympathy, even love, from the
soldier. As he is killed and she goes on "strangling in the solitude she
preferred," the song fades out quickly, leaving the listener with unreconcilable
feelings of sorrow and anger.
It is clear that "The Queen and the Soldier" is a self-referential song despite
its broadly stroked cartoon mythology. Vega is or allows herself to become the
queen. It is difficult to ascertain to what extent she is indicting herself--the
mythic nature of the song allows for the revelation of forbidden emotions that
bore to the heart of relations between men and women. Ultimately, the triumph of
the song is the queen's refusal to bend, regardless of the horror of the
situation. Vega does not let the queen fall into the arms of the gallant soldier,
but neither is the queen allowed to find unjust freedom in her rejection of him.
"The battle continued on..."
In "Knight Moves," the queen "in one false move turns herself into a pawn." Is
she falling in love? It isn't clear. "One side stone one side fire standing
alone among all men's desire." The rapid strumming at the end of "The Queen and
the Soldier" is repeated throughout "Knight Moves," but the baroque ballad style
is replaced with a syncopated "modern" melody. After each verse the chorus asks
the queen, "Do you love any, can you love one." By the end of the song, the
constant accusations of the chorus become ridicule. "Walk on her blind side was
the answer to the joke." In the first and last verses the "blurry night turns
into a very clear dawn," but no image of an epiphany is revealed, and the song
ends with the harping questions of the chorus.
Although these songs were not written specifically as a trilogy, they form a
discreet unit within Vega's repertoire. As a single statement this trilogy is
best described as a cycle of three songs since there is no true resolution
offered thematically or musically. Since its completion last year, she has
written one song in particular that breaks new ground, "Tom's Diner," an a
cappella piece of whimsy and sagacity.
There's a woman
On the outside
Looking inside
Does she see me?
No, she does not really see me
'Cause she sees her own reflection.
For the time being, Suzanne Vega "would rather be a riddle."