Suzanne Vega

Glad to report that I've been keeping up with WoYoPracMo: Twenty days and counting. (That sentence feels a little like Alcoholic Anonymous. Hmm.) This explains why there was a bit of blog silence for a while. I also had to work on Saturday, and later that evening I was at the Suzanne Vega concert.

The Suzanne Vega concert was wonderful -- and way too short. I was smiling and tapping my foot throughout the performance, thoroughly enjoying myself. Vega has a casual, easeful kind of stage presence, and she was funny when she told the audience about the stories behind some of the songs. I adore her for the simplicity of her delivery; for some of the songs she just sang accompanied by only a guitar, or only her bassist.

As Vega told us about the stories behind the different songs, it stuck me that this is why her music is so accessible. Her stories are observations and speculations of different lives. She is interested in the stories of people's heartaches and yearnings. While a lot of songwriters write about themselves, their heartbreaks, their loves -- Suzanne Vega is interested in the story others have to tell of themselves. That is why her songs have a genuine quality about them.

One of my favourite is the story behind, "Pornographer's Dream". What kind of dream would a pornographer have? she asked. Suzanne Vega believes that people dream of what is out of their reach.

So, he would dream of a woman -- fully clothed, she replied. And mysterious.