6 years after 9/11, New York inspires singer Vega

08/09/2007 22:16

By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Just as New York is rebuilding from the World Trade Center attacks, so too is singer Suzanne Vega, whose comeback album recalls the pain and resilience of the city she calls home.

"My emotions have been stretched in the last six years, by 9/11, the death of my brother, my marriage," she said, recounting the inspiration for many of the songs on the critically acclaimed "Beauty and Crime."

Vega’s previous album suffered from what she calls "devastating timing," coming out two weeks after the September 11 attacks.

"So everywhere I went, people came out to hear the music and also talk about what was happening in New York. They were asking me questions about how people were feeling and what the mood was," Vega told Reuters in an interview.

A year after the attacks Vega wrote the song "Anniversary," but she said one song was not enough to sum up her feelings, prompting her to write a suite of New York songs for her latest effort. She will sing "Anniversary" -- with its chorus: "Make the time for all your possibilities/they live on every street" -- on "The Late Show with David Letterman" on Tuesday, kicking off her latest U.S. tour.

For Vega, who burst on the singer-songwriter scene 20 years ago with the song "Luka" about domestic violence, the .....continued below

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last six years have been a period for reflection as she came to terms with the attacks and also the death of her brother, Tim.

He had worked at the World Trade Center, and although he was not there the day the Twin Towers were destroyed, he lost his job and died eight months after the attacks. He lived on Ludlow Street, the title of one of Vega’s new songs.

Meanwhile Vega was dropped by A&M -- the record label she had been with since 1985 -- and divorced and sank into a depression. The only thing that got her out of bed every day, she said, was caring for her daughter, who is now 13.

THE CITY’S MORE BEAUTIFUL SIDE

Now remarried and signed with the legendary jazz label Blue Note, Vega is back and credits the city of New York for much of her new-found creativeness and confidence.

"It’s been a place that I’ve struggled in and had hard times in and then had better times in and slowly as you get older ... the city begins to yield itself to you and show you the other more beautiful side of itself.

"New York and I go way back," she said of the city she came to as a toddler. Vega, 48, lived in Spanish Harlem, the Upper West Side and downtown, and majored in English at prestigious Barnard College before her breakthrough as a singer.

She manages to capture that elusive Big Apple "attitude" in lines such as: "New York is a woman and she’ll make you cry/and to her you’re just another guy."

"I had to really work hard to find that one line," she said. "I thought, ’What do you need to say?’ People come here and they feel so deeply and it’s like, you know ... to New York, I’m just another guy too!

"That’s part of the charm of it, you can come here and be anonymous."

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