Ten Sexy Singers (Plus One): Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega is a different sort of artist than Mariah Carey, obviously. I got turned on to her her by a girlfriend, who puter her in a mix tape for me. I'd never heard any of her stuff on the radio, but I quickly went out and bout Solitude Standing and loved it, listening to it pretty frequently for a couple of years. I shared my like of her with some guy in college, who derided it as "music for angry lesbians."

My first response was "angry lesbians"? I was pretty naive at this point, so my experience with lesbians was limited to hardcore movies like Pumping Irene and Skin-emax softcore, so I thought, "What does a lesbian have to be angry about? They always seem to be having such a good time."

Anyway, labeling Vega as lesbian music had a dual effect on me: it made me ashamed to like her, but also imbued her with a seductive charm. Her music had many clear indications that she liked men, so she must be bisexual--the best possible thing from my standpoint. (At this point, I did not know about the possibility of heteronormative passing, so I never considered it.)

So I listened to her music in secretive fashion, the way I'd look at porn, and it gained something of that quality for me. It leant itself readily to that tint with her lush vocals, the rich orchestration of the music, and the voyeuristic quality of the lyrics. "Tom's Diner," of course, where we are uncomfortably close to a couple kissing their greetings, as well as the woman hiking up her skirt to fix her stockings. But also "Solitude Standing," with the watching figure, "Language," and "Night Vision," which bring us into the intimate moments of Vega and her lover. Not to mention "Luka," which puts us into the role of outside observer putting together the facts about Luka's situation. And there's "Ironbound Fancy Poultry" with its closing coda,

"Fancy poultry parts sold here

Breast and thighs and hearts

Backs are cheap

And wings are nearly free."

Which I have always thought hinted at the imprisoning power of sex.

It was only recently that I heard Nine Objects of Desire, which thrilled me even more with its flirting bisexuality. In "Stockings"she focuses again on a woman hiking up her skirt to fix her stockings, although this time more explicitly sexual, capturing the speaker's discomfort at being in an intimate situation with a friend for whom one feels lust (a situation I unfortunately know all too well as a guy who often finds himself friends with women). Of course I love "Caramel," so prominently featured (to great effect) in The Truth about Cats and Dogs. But we can't forget "My Favorite Plum," an innocent-sounding ditty with just enough allusion to WCW to give it intellectual cache, but there's something in the way it describes the plum that hints the fruit might be for women what peaches are for men. The shape, the color, the firmness of it are all suggestive, something that had never before occurred to even my febrile imagination. And for that, alone, she deserves mention here.