I first listened to this song on my first 33 record album that I ever purchased. I found it gave me a nice uplift when I was feeling blue as it took me from down in that pocket to flying in the air. I still play it when I need a lift.

With me being not that good in English I always thought 'Small blue Thing' was about a women being blue, that is in the meaning of obscene...

Well, on http://members.lycos.nl/rustedpipe/smallbluething. html you can read some things we found on Small Blue Thing;

A passage in the Passionate Eye, about a day when Suzanne was only six years old, could describe the physical meaning of‘Small Blue Thing’: “So one day I was in the front yard again, playing with a mysterious round object, with a small window through which something blue was gleaming,; now I would call it a blown fuse. I shifted it this way and that way and poked at the glass.” This is the same day she was playing with “a stick and a crack” as in ‘As a Child.’



Below are quotes of what Suzanne said on Small Blue Thing:



(http://www.vega.net/perfsong.htm):

“Small Blue Thing,which to me had a humorous element, and was meant to be more playful than it's been interpreted. It was meant to be almost like a cartoon, like a question that you'd ask a child. ‘If you were to describe how you felt, what would you be like?’ Or ‘If you were a small blue thing, what would you be?’ That to me isn't side-splitting funny, but it has an element of whimsy that some people don't look at.”



(http://watermarks.vega.net):

“I studied dance from when I was 9 'till about 18, and you spend all day long looking at yourself in the mirror and trying to embody a perfect line or a perfect form in some way, and that's when it became attractive to me. "Small Blue Thing" has that quality of a line about it and that's why I'm so careful about the images, because it's not just enough to write what you feel, it has to have some kind of form to it. Beyond that I can't really say. A lot of it sometimes just comes out the way it comes out but I think sometimes there is a connection between the way I learned to see things as a child, when I was dancing, and the songs…

…I'm always talking about the way things touch and the way something would feel to my senses. Part of my nature as a child was to get lost in the way things felt. If I was washing the dishes I would spend hours at it because I liked the way they felt. I would sit and stroke all the dishes and my mother would be annoyed with me. She had to come in and tell me to stop fondling them. But I've always had that sort of nature that loses myself in whatever it is that I am touching. Or when I worked in the theatre, in the costume department, I would spend hours ironing a piece of fabric. And that's a big part of my nature, that is there in the songs if you listen for it, like in "Small Blue Thing". It's in that song. It's there in my voice sometimes if it's not there in the words.”

Today I recalled hearing this song for the first time. I imagined then the song could be about the world, 'a small blue thing' in the universe, 'turning' in the hands of the Gods, 'watching' them. I kind of like the feeling that thought gives me.

Spikey

Hi, everybody

I should be ashamed - I'm now a bit old to be indeed - but I'm quite new to Suzanne Vega's music and poetry.
I knew Luka and Tom's Dinner, like everyone, but no more.
Then I discovered this marvellous song with the website videos.
Difficult to say what I feel actually. I wanted to comment on a special moment, when Suzanne sings 'I am falling down the stairs' : there's something magical in the music here. Couldn't explain, maybe someone can. Looks like there's some modulation, and bass rises, the keyboard in the background sound like some rain.
The voice sounds fragile and at the same time rock solid. Well, distant as paradise, one step further, always... and so present at the same time.
You know, I think there are always moments like that in great songs. You hear them for the first time and they already seem not only familiar, but obvious, so to speak.
Then you live with them forever. I fear that one won't leave me...
Do you feel, like me, that the person who wrote this is inside you, not only somebody you like to see/hear ? The closest thing to 'soul', probably - if that word may have a meaning out of religions...
Strange feeling, and a delicious one too.
Thanks to Suzanne Vega for that

hello everybody...

i'm very new to this forum, but i'm not new at all to suzanne's music...

i have all her records. the first one i owned was 'solitude standing', seven years ago. a few months later i bought the compilation 'tried and true - the best of suzanne vega' (it had just been released at that time). 'small blue thing' was one of the songs that hooked me...and it's still one of my favourite ones. it has all the things that i've always liked about suzanne vega: the lyrics, the atmosphere...

i think the live videos in the web site (actually two complete live shows) are very representative of suzanne's music. although there's some great song missing , they're good to introduce someone in suzanne vega's world!!

Listened again to that song all evening...
Another thing that strikes me now is the perfect elegance of Mike Visceglia sound. It is never 'overplayed', fitting perfectly SV singing.
Transitions are perfect and varied too. A great bassist indeed !

"You know, I think there are always moments like that in great songs. You hear them for the first time and they already seem not only familiar, but obvious, so to speak."

that's a feeling of recognition: we got to know something we ignored we already knew. that's the mark of great artistry. and the artist who's able to make us feel that way is beside us, close to us, and writing from a place we all share. you called it 'soul': that's a good word for it, to me.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

Yep, that recognition feeling, 'a place we all share'. You're right.
It is strange to me to use the word 'soul', because I'm not a religious guy, having grown in a religious context .
But I can't find a better word.

there's another word that makes sense to me to explain that feeling of recognition and that is "source", just like suzanne uses it in "pilgrimage":

"Travel. Arrival
Years of an inch and a step
Toward a source"

a source from where everything human springs, a secular source, a source "somewhere deep within".

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

That's a nice way of saying it, you're right.
I don't know this song, being new to her works, but I'll buy the cd.

Hi. I used to be on the Undertow back when it was not a discusssion board but a mailing list, but I've been out of things for some time now.

I return just to see what it is like now, and to share a small episode about Small Blue Thing. I have no idea whether people will actually read what I write, but I want to write it anyway.

I live in Japan, and this year have been very involved in the Expo in Aichi Prefecture. In particular, one pavilion, called the Seto Japan Pavilion. This pavilion showcased everything that is good and beautiful about the Japanese culture, but in particular one performance caught my eye, and in the end I saw it more than 100 times in six months. (you can read more about my experiences on my blog at www.sueconolly.net if you are interested).

Anyway, I went so much and became such a fixture that NHK interviewed me for a documentary that they were making about the phenomenon of the show, and the 66 actors that made it happen. In particular, they focussed on one actress, who had grown up with a pretty low self esteem and four years ago had taken up dance to change herself from the inside out. In this production, her first time in any major public production, she had a leading role and was required to recite one line from a famous poem by Miyazawa Kenji.

"The phenomenon called "I" is one blue light. It is one blue light radiating from an electric current."

This was her line from the show, and on the documentary she says that although it was a great pressure to recite the line in front of the audience, the words saved her. I could not quite pin down what she meant by that, but then I remembered about my youth and Small Blue Thing.

I have no idea what Suzanne had in her mind when writing Small Blue Thing, but I have clear recollections about my state of mind when listening to it. To me, it was a statement of individuality, not necessarily sadness or depression as might be suggested by the colour, but just a simple statement of being, like a dance down the street. The song gave me a feeling of peace, like it was OK to be me. OK to be skipping down the sidewalk. Scattering like light.

Anyway, the actress on the documentary talked about wanting to be "acknowledged". Not acknowledged as being good at dance or being good at performance, but just to be acknowledged. I certainly did acknowledge her, and 65 other actors who kept those fantastic performances going for 185 days. I hope that she acknowledges herself.

I'm sure that Suzanne Vega's Small Blue Thing, scattering like light, had nothing to do with Miyazawa Kenji's "One blue light radiating from an electric current", at the time. But it has a connection now, if only in my mind.

Thanks for reading.

Sue,

"I have no idea whether people will actually read what I write, but I want to write it anyway."

Some of us do. Even if not all reply. But anyway, writing is its own reward, as you surelly know, from the very interesting blog you keep.

It's a lovely story, though unrelated to Suzanne's motivation for the song, it shows us how real art is always open, allowing us to continuously link it to our own universe. It just takes keeping an open mind, as you did, and we're constantly surprised.

By the way, did you know there is another towie in Japan? Paulo, where are you?

j.c.

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http://www.vega.net
http://setlists.vega.net
http://rustedpipe.vega.net

hi

when i hear this song, few weeks ago, it seems to me like the inner child of the earth is watching to the moon, the sun or the universe.

i like this song very much.

greetings and