Solitude Standing by Suzanne Vega

“I suppose the things that interest me most are character and place,” Suzanne Vega has said. “For me, it’s not so much what people do as why they do it.”

If striving for getting beneath the surface and uncovering the feelings and thoughts that we all harbor within ourselves is a theme that seems to recur throughout many of Suzanne Vega's songs, that's understandable. Suzanne is someone who knows all too well that our perception of things can often be very different from what they actually are.

Still, the perception and the reality can also be one and the same, as a close look at Suzanne’s own career shows.  There’s no doubt that in the two years since the release of her stunning debut album, Suzanne Vega, the artist described by the New York Times as “the strongest, most decisively shaped songwriting  personality to come along in years” has matched the acclaim with an international following of significant proportions. And with Solitude Standing, her second album for A&M, Suzanne Vega has taken a definitive step forward.

Vega was writing songs at 14 and performing at 16, usually accompanied by her own acoustic guitar. She began attracting the attention of critics and public alike as long as six years ago, and in a July ’84 review, Steven Holden of the New York Times called her “one of the promising talents on the New York folk music circuit.”

The folk tag, Suzanne realized, was natural enough, what with the acoustic guitar and solo performances at clubs like Folk City and the Speakeasy. Still, she wasn’t completely comfortable with it. “I could tell from listening to Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston and other that these people had no pretentiousness about them, which impressed me,” she said. But my music is not as pastoral or escapist. I don’t think a song like, say, ‘Cracking,’ could really be construed as a folk song.”

Suzanne Vega, released in April, 1985, showcases such farafield compositions as “Freeze Tag,” “Marlene on the Wall” and the free-floating “Some Journey.” Sparked in part by the “Marlene” video and #1 college radio airplay, the album sold over 200,000 copies in the U.S. and spent 27 weeks on the Billboard chart.

Internationally, Suzanne Vega was an overwhelming and unqualified success. It sold over 500,000 copies outside the U.S. and reached double gold-status in the U.K.

Vega’s other projects between Suzanne Vega and Solitude Standing included writing lyrics for two songs on composer Philip Glass’ Songs from Liquid Days album; her songs “Freezing” and Lightening” were sung by Linda Ronstadt and Janice Pendarvis, respectively. In addition, she contributed “Left of Center” to the hit Pretty in Pink soundtrack album.

“Stretching myself to do things as diverse as those two projects gave me the confidence to do more powerful work on my own,” Suzanne said, and with Solitude Standing she has done that. Like Suzanne Vega, the new album was co-produced by guitarist-engineer Steve Addabbo, who has worked with Vega for several years; and Lenny Kaye, the former Patti Smith Group guitarist.

It was a natural step in Solitude Standing to incorporate the Suzanne Vega Band (guitarist Marc Shulman, drummer Stephen Ferrera, bassist Michael Visceglia and keyboardist Anton Sanko) into the text of Vega’s music. Indeed, the bank members sharing writing credits on several of the new songs.

“We wanted the band to work as a unit for the album and for the subsequent touring,” noted Addabbo. And the tracks, as mixed by Shelly Yakus, balance what Yakus calls “a more aggressive, rock ‘n’ roll style with Suzanne’s beautiful voice.”

“You get a sense of energy with a band that I never quite understood until I was playing inside of one,” Suzanne says. “There’s a rough edge that I simply couldn’t get on my own that I think comes through now, and I’m happy for that.”

Of course, Solitude Standing is expectedly rich in lyrical images and ideas. “My first album was about people in alienating situations,” she recently told a reporter. “The new album is even more of a character album, characters who are all solitary, all in specific situations.” I don’t write about myself; I write from the part of myself that’s the same in everyone. I don’t write about relationships; I try to define identities. I try to give people’s feelings shape, color and texture.”

The release of Solitude Standing will be followed by a world concert tour that will keep Suzanne on the road into December. Included on the itinerary are a May date at New York’s Shubert Theatre, a highly unusual and very special appearance by a recording artist at that storied Broadway venue; U.K. and European dates in May and June, including five nights in Dublin and special shows in London’s Regent Park Amphitheatre, a noted Shakespearean venue.