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Suzanne Vega talks music cults, mentions Morrissey/Smiths in NY times

posted by davidt on Friday December 05 2008, @11:30AM
A. Mailliard writes:
from todays NYtimes via an arts blog Suzanne Vega writes for.

"I remember walking down the street one day, wearing a Smiths t-shirt, back in the mid-’80s. I was headed for the subway station, and I had to pass through a crowd of black teenagers to get there. There were maybe eight or so young men, looking me up and down as I picked my way through them. My neck prickled with worry. What would they say? Would they call me a goofy white girl, or worse?

One of them snickered. My stomach dropped. Then another one sang out, “I am human and I need to be loved!! Just like everybody else does!!” Morrissey’s transcendental lyrics from “How Soon Is Now?” It was so unexpected that I burst out laughing. They knew the song! Then we all laughed, and the tension was broken. Maybe we were the same tribe after all.
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  • Thanks, A. Mailliard, for the article. Suzanne Vega touches on the subject without self-pity and she brings light where multicultural upbringing is so often depicted as a picture's negative - aka without bringing out its true colors. Cultural and racial fusion is still treated as an absurd, incomprehensible concept in United States, even though reality has lived for so long under the unyielding surface of this concept.

    Hahah, when she mentions being the only white girl standing out among Puerto Ricans it reminds me, with a laugh, of my ballet and jazz classes in Brazil, where there was this row of tanned, curvy and short girls, and then this tall and chalk-white one, which was me. Needless to say how the ballet never went anywhere, given how awkward I felt about my tall and white body. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I got my first boyfriend because I didn't fit into the Brazilian standard of beauty back then.

    I was "too American" there, but the curious thing is that, despite my "European looks", and my USA birth certificate and all that, as soon as many people notice my accent, they instantly treat me as a "non-American", although I am.

    What makes our nationality? white, Brazilian, Puerto Rican, American? The color of the skin? The accent? A birth certificate? Our upbringing? Our behavior?

    I could never understand. But I am glad some people bring up the complexity of this issue.

    I have always been a fan of hers, too :)

    Mrs. Woolf -- Friday December 05 2008, @01:15PM (#315716)
    (User #14157 Info)
  • didn't she do that irritating song "my name is Luca" or something?
    Anonymous -- Friday December 05 2008, @01:44PM (#315721)
    • Morrissey? by Anonymous (Score:0) Saturday December 06 2008, @08:03AM
  • I was jumped, beaten,and robbed.

    And they didn't tip when I'd waited their table earlier, either.

    Word.
    Skorzeny -- Friday December 05 2008, @05:53PM (#315759)
    (User #21331 Info)
  • She's mega mega friendly to fans in her concerts anda very inteligent singer. Great to know she likes Morrissey.
    AlexLondon -- Saturday December 06 2008, @04:07AM (#315771)
    (User #5825 Info | http://www.sioux.homechoice.co.uk/)
  • Wow, all we need to do is play Morrissey at the next United Nations meeting and all nations and races of the world will forget their differences and come together in love of the man and all conflicts and bloodshed will be ended for ever. Just like they are on these forums. Factory farms will be demolished, the animals set free, little bunny rabbits will run in our streets and flowers will spring up in places scarred by years of warfare.
    Anonymous -- Saturday December 06 2008, @09:05AM (#315791)

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