Photo Credit: George Holz
Suzanne Vega
Spanning four decades, the career of singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega is a storied one, and she continues to push herself further with each new project. Vega has already appeared as a recording artist, as well as an actress, and most recently, premiered the film version of her one-woman show, Lover, Beloved at South by Southwest in March to critical acclaim. The film is an adaptation of her stage performance, based on the work of southern gothic writer Carson McCullers. On top of all of that, she’ll play Turner Hall Ballroom this weekend, touring behind her 2020 album, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories. Before that, however, she made time to speak to Shepherd Express:
You’ve made the transition from the stage to the screen. Tell us a bit about putting Lover, Beloved together.
It’s a film about the life southern writer Carson McCullers, and I've been fascinated by her life since I was in college. It's a film of the one-woman show that I wrote, based on her life and work, and contains some songs in there as well. I'm really proud of how it came out. We premiered at South by Southwest and I'm hoping to find a way to have it distributed so that the public can see it.
When you’re putting together a piece like this, with a film and music, is there more pressure as the artist to make things feel cohesive, or can you create a little more freely?
Both. It has to be cohesive because it’s another person’s world, and so I’ve made sure that the details are accurate, and that the time periods are accurate, even though I feel that in her heart she was a very modern woman, and that and people could connect to her character now in a way that they would not have say in the 1940s, which is when she first became famous. So I had to be very careful in terms of that world that I created, that it was truthful to her life. On the other hand, there’s kind of a great freedom playing someone that's not myself. I felt that it was a lot of fun to assume her character and act in ways that that I don't normally, so in that it's a project that has given me a lot of pleasure.
Do you think that working on this project might influence your songwriting? Do the two worlds go hand-in-hand to you?
To be honest, I've always been interested in writing in other voices, and I’ve done that a lot of times throughout my career. Songs like “Calypso” and “Caspar Hauser,” even the song “Luka” was kind of a character that I created and sang in the voice of, so it's kind of a continuation of something I had already done.
I have to ask about “Tom’s Diner.” I’m sure you’ve seen the TikTok video covering the song that has gone viral recently?
I actually approved that a couple of years ago, and it only took off recently. People kept emailing me saying “have you seen this?” and I think I approved it last year. I’m like “this is old,” but it just took off now all of a sudden. Now there’s all these other parodies of it, and spinoffs and takeoffs. But I think it’s great.
You have a unique experience in the sense that you have a song and a melody that seems to resurface every few years in a new way. How does it feel to be always attached to that piece of music?
When someone told me that Britney Spears did it, I almost fainted. I was like, “seriously?” but she did, and I like it. I think it's funny. I approve 99% of the interpolations and versions that come my way, and I enjoy it all. I think seems to keep on going and going, not only the melody and also the idea of sitting at a diner makes it a song that is fairly universal, so people just want to put their own spin on it. Most of the time, I say okay.
You can catch Suzanne Vega at Turner Hall Ballroom on Saturday night. For more information and tickets, visit the Pabst Theater Group website.
