Suzanne Vega, Lilith Fair mainstay, signing copies of Close Up

*2/15/10 7:00 PM at Barnes & Noble – Grove Drive. Los Angeles, CA.

Suzanne Nadine Vega (born July 11, 1959) is an American songwriter and singer known for her highly literate lyrics and eclectic folk-inspired music.

Two of Vega’s songs (both from her second album Solitude Standing, 1987) reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner”. The latter was originally an a cappella version on Vega’s album, which was then remade in 1990 as a dance track produced by the British dance production team DNA.

Luka

“Luka” was covered by The Lemonheads on its 1989 album Lick, shortly before the band was signed by Atlantic Records, and was a minor college-airplay hit. On a 1987 Swedish television special, Vega said this about the song “Luka”:
“ A few years ago, I used to see this group of children playing in front of my building, and there was one of them, whose name was Luka, who seemed a little bit distinctive from the other children. I always remembered his name, and I always remembered his face, and I didn’t know much about him, but he just seemed set apart from these other children that I would see playing. And his character is what I based the song Luka on. In the song, the boy Luka is an abused child — in real life I don’t think he was. I think he was just different. ”

Also, in an ASCAP interview, she responded to a question about “Luka”:
“ Interviewer: When you can touch so many people with songs like “Luka”, it must be pretty rewarding.

Vega: Yeah. It’s an amazing feeling. Especially since that particular song is a very special song. It’s a song about child abuse, so therefore it does touch a lot of people in a different way than if it were, say, a love song or some other kind of song.

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