Suzanne Vega: Suzanne Vega (A&M, 1985)


Suzanne Vega is perhaps the most imaginative and inventive songwriter in pop today. A bold declaration, and one I don't make lightly. For the hundredth time, I'm not given to hyperbole. I cannot think of another single songwriter who so consistently surprises me with a unexpected melodic turn or a clever lyrical faint, and who still manages to tie it all together at the end of the song so I'm left thinking I'd just heard the perfect song. Nearly every single time, at least six or seven times with each new album.

When I first heard Suzanne Vega I was probably eighteen, practicing guitar three or four hours a night, writing the occasional, strained song and nurturing secret dreams of touring with Tom Petty. The first time I listened to the album I knew it was special, but I didn't know how. The meandering melodies and soft-spoken vocals disguised the astute brilliance of Vega's austere, minimal lyrics.

As I listened through a couple more times, I began to recognise the layers - of meaning, of musicianship. Songs like "Marlene on the Wall", "Some Journey" and "Knight Moves" are like a core-sample of a life. The closer you look, the more you can extrapolate and deduce.

By about the fourth listen I realised that I'd never be able to produce a song I could be proud of or to play it as well as I wanted. But I also realised that I was okay with that, because somebody had already said everything that I could think of saying, and had said it more eloquently than I could ever hope to.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Master and Everyone (Drag City 2003)


Don't listen to this if you're having doubts about staying married. Or even carpooling with someone for a long time.

Will Oldham, ever the free spirit, dissects this free-wheeling image and lets selfishness and desire off the leash with a self-conscious clarity of purpose - and production - and the results tell you (and the women in your life - for the moment, anyway) all there needs to be told about the workings of the male mind.

She loves a soul,
That I've never been
A dog among dogs,
A man among men
And every day,
When I come home to her
She holds a phantom,
She kisses and she hugs him
And I am not
Averse to how she loves him
Why must I live and walk,
Unloved as what I am

Why can't I be loved as what I am
A wolf among wolves,
and not as a man
Among men

She craves a home
That she can go in
A sheltered cave,
That I have never seen
Not in my life,
And not even in my dreams

Why can't I be loved as what I am
A wolf among wolves,
and not as a man
Among men

Unfortunately for the serial mongamists and co-dependents out there, this is what is going through your man's mind when you cuddle up to him on the couch after work.

At least you can rely on the fact that he probably won't leave. He'll bury it instead.