“It’s a mixture of my own experience and feelings, things I know to be true, and fantasy. A worse but more interesting life. If I had given into that temptation, there would have been chaos and pandemonium.”—Suzanne Vega, on her song “Caramel,” quoted in David Honigmann, “Girl-Power,” The Financial Times, June 12, 2010
As a Columbia alum who had occasion to visit the famed Morningside Heights eatery, I’ve felt a curious identification with Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner.” And her “Luka” compels my interest for its emotionally wrenching narrative by a child-abuse victim.
But for the witching rhythms that can transport you far beyond anything you’ve ever known, only one song can do: “Caramel.” It offers simple but spellbinding songcraft about the allure and dangers of desire. (“I know your name/I know your skin/I know the way/These things begin.”)
It’s a minor disappointment of my life that I never got to hear Ms. Vega when we were both students on Morningside Heights—me at Columbia, she across the street at Barnard. It would have been something to catch this artist when she was in the process of finding her voice.
Last weekend, Ms. Vega trace her life's trajectory—including how she came to write “Caramel”-in an interview with The Financial Times. It comes at a particularly fascinating moment in her career: an attempt to take hold of her financial future, now that the whole recording industry has gone kerflooey because of the digital revolution.
Specifically, the singer-songwriter, according to a New Yorker profile a few months ago, is taking a leaf from Dar Williams and Carly Simon by re-recording a number of her old songs (starting this past week, with Love Songs), with new arrangements, then releasing the product independently. It's a way of reviving her back catalogue as the major labels let them go out of print.
How will this turn out? That remains to be seen.
I bought Carly Simon’s attempt at this, Never Been Gone, just as I have most of her albums. The results of these largely new acoustic arrangements were spotty—from great successes to misconceived experiments.
More fundamentally, however, fans—make that, in this more cold-blooded age, “musical consumers”—are likely going to be reluctant to accept the same old wine in different bottles.
Right now in the music industry, I don’t think it helps to discourage artists such as Ms. Vega from doing what they can to survive. True “heritage artists” such as James Taylor and Carole King have such rich songbooks—and such devoted followings across generations—that, no matter how few units they might sell these days, their live performances will still attract capacity crowds. Other artists, not quite as well-established, such as Ms. Vega, don’t have that luxury, and so need all the help they can get—including innovative ways of promoting their backlists.
As a Columbia alum who had occasion to visit the famed Morningside Heights eatery, I’ve felt a curious identification with Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner.” And her “Luka” compels my interest for its emotionally wrenching narrative by a child-abuse victim.
But for the witching rhythms that can transport you far beyond anything you’ve ever known, only one song can do: “Caramel.” It offers simple but spellbinding songcraft about the allure and dangers of desire. (“I know your name/I know your skin/I know the way/These things begin.”)
It’s a minor disappointment of my life that I never got to hear Ms. Vega when we were both students on Morningside Heights—me at Columbia, she across the street at Barnard. It would have been something to catch this artist when she was in the process of finding her voice.
Last weekend, Ms. Vega trace her life's trajectory—including how she came to write “Caramel”-in an interview with The Financial Times. It comes at a particularly fascinating moment in her career: an attempt to take hold of her financial future, now that the whole recording industry has gone kerflooey because of the digital revolution.
Specifically, the singer-songwriter, according to a New Yorker profile a few months ago, is taking a leaf from Dar Williams and Carly Simon by re-recording a number of her old songs (starting this past week, with Love Songs), with new arrangements, then releasing the product independently. It's a way of reviving her back catalogue as the major labels let them go out of print.
How will this turn out? That remains to be seen.
I bought Carly Simon’s attempt at this, Never Been Gone, just as I have most of her albums. The results of these largely new acoustic arrangements were spotty—from great successes to misconceived experiments.
More fundamentally, however, fans—make that, in this more cold-blooded age, “musical consumers”—are likely going to be reluctant to accept the same old wine in different bottles.
Right now in the music industry, I don’t think it helps to discourage artists such as Ms. Vega from doing what they can to survive. True “heritage artists” such as James Taylor and Carole King have such rich songbooks—and such devoted followings across generations—that, no matter how few units they might sell these days, their live performances will still attract capacity crowds. Other artists, not quite as well-established, such as Ms. Vega, don’t have that luxury, and so need all the help they can get—including innovative ways of promoting their backlists.
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