Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Suzanne Vega.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American singer-songwriter best known for her folk-inspired music. Vega's music career spans almost 40 years. She came to prominence in the mid-1980s, releasing four singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the UK during the 1980s and 1990s, including "Marlene on the Wall", "Left of Center", "Luka" and "No Cheap Thrill". "Tom's Diner", which was originally released as an a cappella recording on Vega's second album, Solitude Standing (1987), was remixed in 1990 as a dance track by English electronic duo DNA with Vega as featured artist, and it became a Top 10 hit in over five countries. The original a capella recording of the song was used as a test during the creation of the MP3 format. The role of her song in the development of the MP3 compression prompted Vega to be given the title of "The Mother of the MP3".
Of course, sometimes when you write personally, you are also writing about society, obliquely reflecting topical issues, but not in a way that people would expect you to or in the way that someone trying to make a point would.
Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that there's a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.
There are no rules in fights with girls. Just hurting.
I don't think gender is aesthetically defining for me.
A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized.
When I was pregnant, I felt filled with life, and I felt really happy. I ate well, and I slept well. I felt much more useful than I'd ever felt before.
My mother wanted me to understand that as a woman I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to, that I didn't have to use sex or sexuality to define myself.
In the end, my pursuit of the elusive New York State driver's license became about much more than a divorced woman's learning to drive for the first time.
It takes as much discipline to be a mother and a wife as it does to do anything else.
So you eat, you sleep, and then this wonderful child comes out, but you don't feel like you have any control over that process, over her, over her character and who she is.
Don't make a threat and then not do it.
I still consider myself a feminist.
Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that.
Writing is always personal in some way but not always in a direct way.
How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective.
If you have to fight a crowd of boys, it's best to go for the biggest one. That way you won't have to fight them all. The others will see that you mean business and you will win their respect.
I wouldn't characterize my work, however, as directly political.
I had some fears as a kid, but I was also relatively fearless. Maybe that's a result of living half the time in reality and the other half in fantasy.
My intellect has always been more responsible than my emotions for how I respond to the world.
You have to defend your honor. And your family.
Some girls are taught to be sexy.
I was always inventing characters and making up stories.
I loved the atmosphere of the dance studios - the wooden floors, the big mirrors, everyone dressed in pink or black tights, the musicians accompanying us - and the feeling of ritual the classes had.
I think people are sexy when they have a sense of humor, when they are smart, when they have some sense of style, when they are kind, when they express their own opinions, when they are creative, when they have character.
Girls are crazy and mean. They don't fight fair.
To me, a feminist belongs in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently.
I dont think gender is aesthetically defining for me.
I wasn't afraid of going places or doing new things. I would do just about anything or go anywhere. I'd get a notion in my mind and just follow it.
The thing that is most interesting about people is the way they are when no one is looking at them or the way they are when they are in private.
I was the oldest child, and both my parents worked, so I had a great deal of responsibility from a very young age.
I think that if you have a strong narrative, if the idea of the song can be boiled down to the basics, it won't change that much.
Today I am
a small blue thing
Like a marble
or an eye
A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized. Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that. That's why I write the way I do.
If language were liquid, it would be rushing in. Instead here we are in a silence more eloquent than any word could ever be.
Last year's troubles, They shine up so prettily, They gleam with a lustre they don't have today.
And I really wanted a driver's license. I was 43, had my learner's permit and had failed the test once already - but that was in Riverhead, on Long Island.
I fingerpick a lot because I can get more of a range of feeling from the guitar than I can when I bash away with a pick.
Kindness to me is only powerful if it has the cruel streak behind it. If someone is kind all the time under all circumstances, they're just simple-minded. Kindness is only worth something if you have the cruel streak to back it up.
But I never want to get to the point where I write a safe song or one that represents my sense of a subject in order to appear civilized.
Solitude stands by the window
She turns her head as I walk in the room
I can see by her eyes she's been waiting
Standing in the slant of the late afternoon
I'd like to meet you
In a timeless placeless place
Somewhere out of context
And beyond all consequences.
Yes I think I'm okay, walked into the door again.
Mother my friends are no longer my friends
And the games we once played have no meaning
I've gone serious and shy and they can't figure why
So they've left me to my own daydreaming.
The first song I wrote was the first song I remember thinking, "Well, maybe I can do something here." The very first one. By the second one I knew I could do something.
Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that theres a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.
Don't uncork what you can't contain
My name is Luka I live on the second floor. I live upstairs from you, yes, I think you've seen me before.
I always thought that if I was popular I must be doing something wrong.
I didn't go out looking for fights as a kid, but if it was necessary, I'd fight. Fighting was a daily thing where we lived.
That said, I've never thought the fact that I'm a woman was important to my work.
It's striking how commercially viable that impulse for instant intimacy is right now, especially in songs and writing.
I still feel conflicted because I don't always get to spend as much time with my daughter as I'd like, given my work.
I like to write about things that are extreme in some form. I like to write about something I feel I have to write about.
To me, a feminist belong in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently.