Review | A Memorable Valentine from Suzanne Vega

It takes a while to learn this, but the thing about getting older is you never really lose all the YOUs you’ve been over the years. They’re always part of you, easily accessed with familiar sights, smells and especially sounds. 

I thought about this as happy waves of nostalgia washed over me as Suzanne Vega took the stage of the Lobero and began her set with “Marlene on the Wall.” The 1980s hit took me right back to my years of living in West Hollywood, where her intimate shows at iconic clubs such as The Troubadour were always so memorable. 

Last month’s Santa Barbara show was equally memorable, still embedded in my brain all these weeks later, and definitely one of the concert highlights of my year so far. 

It was also Valentine’s Day. There’s something about that holiday in particular that makes me relive all the ages I’ve ever been. From the excited little girl making cards for the whole class, to my first real sweetheart in junior high, they were all with me this year. 

As promised (read my preview interview with Vega here), she took us on a journey to the past, as she laughingly said, “You know the old songs, and, just as importantly, we know the old songs.” 

Accompanied by her longtime collaborator Gerry Leonard, and with hundreds of stellar songs to choose from, our musical journey that night included “99.9 F,” “Flying with Angels,” “Chambermaid,” “I Never Wear White,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Rats” (a cheeky favorite from her new album Flying with Angels — see the hilarious video here), and of course her best known songs “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner.” 

Vega is such a great storyteller that all of her songs managed to sound both new and old and warm and familiar at the same time. One of my favorites was the introduction to “Gypsy,” about her very first summer romance when she was the folk singing and disco dance counselor and he was the arts and crafts counselor of a nearby boys’ camp.

 “You never forget, you know. (I do know, we all do.) And so, that’s why I keep singing, because I still remember and I sing it also, so that you will remember your first romances and think about them.”

She continued, “We met at this bar, which was in between two camps by the side of the road, and I stood there at the bar, and he approached me, and he said this magic phrase. He said, ‘Do you like Leonard Cohen?’ And I think I even said, ‘Yes, I love Leonard Cohen.’”

But she was embarrassed by that, and covered it up by saying “but only in certain moods,” because I didn’t want him to think that I was depressed, she said with a knowing nod. 

“But he laughed, and said, ‘What mood is that?’ And said, ‘I love Leonard Cohen all the time,’ and he said he did too.  So this was clearly a sign from the heavens that we were meant to be together, and we were together for about six weeks, and then the end of the summer came, and I knew I would go back to New York City, where I’m from, and he would go back to his hometown. So this filled me with melancholy, and I thought, ‘I’ll just write everything down as it happened, and I’ll put it down as a poem,’ and I put it on a card, and I gave it to him as a kind of gift.

“And he, in return, gave me his bandana.” 

And she, in return, gave all of us a beautiful song — written at age 16 — with the perfect lyrics for what I was feeling that lovely night:

 “With a long and slender body / And the sweetest softest hands / And we’ll blow away forever soon / And go on to different lands / And please do not ever look for me / But with me you will stay / And you will hear yourself in song / Blowing by one day.” 

Listen to it here.