In 2011, Suzanne Vega wrote and performed a play called Carson McCullers Talks About Love, which is about the life of the great Southern Gothic writer of American girlhood.
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Like Vega, McCullers found success early. In 1940, she impressed the literary world with her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, published when she was only 23 years old.
McCullers, who suffered from disability and personal tumult, lost prominence as critics viewed her 1946 novel The Member of the Wedding less enthusiastically than she felt about it. Meanwhile, Southern writers such as Harper Lee and Truman Capote filled literary history’s consciousness.
The world moving on from a once-celebrated artist echoed Vega’s life.
“Marlene on the Wall”
Vega studied dance in New York at the High School of Performing Arts (now called LaGuardia High School). Then she traded dance for books.
While studying literature at Barnard College, Vega began performing in Greenwich Village at Cornelia Street Cafe, where she was part of Jack Hardy’s songwriting group.
At age 25, A&M Records released her self-titled debut. The album’s lead single, “Marlene on the Wall,” wasn’t successful initially, but it slowly reached the UK Top 40 in 1986.
Working with producer Steve Addabbo and Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, Vega’s folk debut contrasted with female artists at the time, like Madonna, who dominated ’80s pop culture.
However, the earthy aesthetic of Vega’s debut created a path for new folk-pop artists like Tracy Chapman.
My Name is Luka
She continued working with Addabbo and Kaye on her second album, Solitude Standing, which became Vega’s most commercially successful work. It reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200, and her song about child abuse, “Luka,” shot to No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100. It was her highest-charting single in the United States.
My name is Luka
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes, I think you’ve seen me before
If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight
Just don’t ask me what it was
“Luka” received three Grammy nominations, including for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1988.
“Tom’s Diner”
She followed “Luka” with “Tom’s Diner,” named after Tom’s Restaurant in New York—made famous on Seinfeld. As a college student, Vega frequented the restaurant and observed the lives of others around her.
All writers are voyeurs, and Vega’s song follows the happenings of strangers. However, she’s not only the witness but the documentarian. Solitude Standing opens with Vega performing “Tom’s Diner” a cappella.
Two British producers called DNA remixed Vega’s a cappella version—mixing her voice with a beat from “Keep on Movin’” by Soul II Soul. DNA transformed Vega’s ad-libbed outro (Do do do uh, do da-do uh) into an earworm, propelling “Tom’s Diner” to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
I am sitting in the morning
At the diner on the corner
I am waiting at the counter
For the man to pour the coffee
And he fills it only halfway
And before I even argue
He is looking out the window
At somebody coming in
Moreover, Vega narrates with an easy aloofness, and you imagine the people she’s observing don’t feel a threatening presence coming from her direction. Disarmed, they complete their rituals, some ordinary, others not, and Vega recounts all of it, including what’s in the newspaper.
The Sojourner
Under the weight of expectation, Vega released her third album Days of Open Hand in 1990. She worked for a year on the album, though she wasn’t happy with the results. A polished, dense production had replaced her earnest folk sound.
Still, put against Solitude Standing’s success, Days of Open Hand stalled without the singles to match the success of “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner.”
With a new sound expanding beyond her usual folk style, Vega’s 1990 performances required a much larger production. But declining ticket sales forced her to scrap the expensive tour.
Returning home from the canceled tour, she arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Vega explained to The Guardian she realized things had changed when the record label stopped sending a car to gather her from the airport. She took a taxi home instead.
Suzanne’s Version
Though the music industry has moved on, Vega’s loyal fan base sustains her.
She continued releasing albums on A&M through her sixth studio album, Songs in Red and Gray. But after releasing a greatest hits compilation in 2003, she left.
The iconic jazz label Blue Note Records released Vega’s next album, Beauty & Crime. After touring to promote the album, she formed her own record label and, in 2010, began releasing rerecorded versions of her back catalog, foreshadowing Taylor’s Versions—Taylor Swift’s rerecordings for those not in the know.
The company is called Amanuensis Productions—a pun aimed at A&M’s ownership of her previous works.
Clock Without Hands
Shifting from immense popularity to cult status is a change in identity. But this change in placement isn’t a new experience for Vega.
She grew up in East Harlem. At age 9, Vega learned the man she thought was her father wasn’t. To that point, Vega believed she was half Puerto Rican. She didn’t meet her biological father until after her success. She was in her late 20s and felt dislocated.
So, how has she dealt with changing fortunes? She admitted to The Guardian that “I have a jealous streak. I’m jealous of other people’s success, their acclaim, their recognition I guess. But over the years I’ve had to say, you just have to put that away. What I’m not jealous of is people’s freedoms. Because I’ve done what I’ve wanted.”
She’s put that freedom to good use.
Vega’s ninth studio album, Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, released in 2016, is a continuation of the McCullers project she started in college.
But she’s used to having patience for long projects. She wrote “Tom’s Diner” in 1982.
And I finish up my coffee
And it’s time to catch the train
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Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Shorefire
