There are a small number of musical artists whose records I will buy “sight unseen,” or, “sound unheard.”
Suzanne Vega is one of them. Her lyrical and melodic genius sits on a higher plane than most. She has the divine in her.
I won her album Solitude Standing on a radio call-in contest at WOKW in Cortland, New York, in 1987. That was the record containing her famous top-40 hit Luka.
[Correction: My sister reminds me that it was she who won this particular record.]
I sat down and wrote her a letter thanking her for understanding what it was like for children like me. A few weeks later, a postcard arrived from her with a kind note thanking me for enjoying her music and for writing to her.
Enjoy this short piece meditating on the thinning veil between our world and another.
’When we sleep so close together that our hair becomes entwined
I must have missed that moment in the gateway to his mind’
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That was so kind of her to send you a thank you postcard. I remember being very taken with her song "Ironbound". I know it sounds bizarre, but when she sang about the "fancy poultry parts", I almost felt like I was the parts.
I remember distinctly playing the tape in the car, and my friend Jeremy saying, "Suzanne Vega? Everyone is either obsessed with her or Tori Amos. She's singing about chicken parts. Seriously?"
That stung enough to create a long term memory.
https://youtu.be/wnV-DPmrkLk
I love Suzanne Vega~! Both my husband and I~! Insightful, masterful poetry and sense of rhythm, empathic. And sense of humor~ Thank you for sharing your sweet story~!