She can’t say if any of the creatures were harmed in the making of the song, but according to Suzanne Vega, all the rodents mentioned in the punky “Rats,” from Flying with Angels, her first album of all-new material in 11 years, were entirely real. “Oh yeah, all of them,” says the celebrated singer-songwriter, who will perform at the Ridgefield Playhouse on June 15. “The one who fell down from the ceiling and ran across the bed, the ones that were swarming at [Upper West Side deli] Barzini’s and the ones that attacked a Prius in the street. They all came from specific stories I heard or read about.”
“Rats” is a fun, quirky tune, belying the fact that rodent infestation is a dark, urban subject. But, of course, Vega is famously no stranger to dark, urban subjects. Her worldwide 1987 hit “Luka” dealt with child abuse; her other hugely successful singles, 1990’s “Tom’s Diner” and 1992’s clanging, industrial “Blood Makes Noise,” essayed, respectively, the scene at a buzzing Uptown Manhattan restaurant from the perspective of a disenfranchised outsider and the heart-racing, walls-closing-in feeling of fear. As with Lou Reed, one of her strongest influences, it’s hard to imagine Vega, a consummate New York artist, coming up with quite the same types of songs if she lived somewhere other than the Big Apple. “I think I could,” the singer counters. “I’ve also spent time living in London, Tokyo, and other cities, and I’ve written songs in those places. I have some that were written when I was by the ocean—my ‘water songs,’ I call them.”
Born in California in 1959, Vega moved to New York with her mother, a computer systems analyst, and stepfather, a writer and teacher, when she was 11, settling first in Spanish Harlem and then the Upper West Side. Folk music was big with her parents, and she soaked it up while she studied modern dance at the High School of Performing Arts. While majoring in English literature at Barnard College, she began performing the songs she’d been writing at Greenwich Village folk clubs. In 1985, with Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye coproducing, she recorded her eponymous debut album, whose “Marlene on the Wall” became a UK Top 40 single, a feat repeated by “Left of Center,” her contribution to the 1986 Pretty in Pink soundtrack. The following year brought Solitude Standing (recorded at Bearsville Studio and again coproduced by Kaye) and the international smash “Luka,” a US number three hit; the same album’s acapella “Tom’s Diner” found new life as a Top 10 single in 1990 when it was remixed by dance music duo DNA.
In the time between that album and the new Flying with Angels, Vega released seven other studio albums, the most recent being 2016’s Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, a set inspired by her 2011 play “Carson McCullers Talks About Love,” in which she starred as the revered writer. More theater work came with her role in an off-Broadway musical based on the 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 2020.
But amid all her touring and theatrical activities, Vega, who presently performs with cellist Stephanie Winter and guitarist (and Flying with Angels producer) Gerry Leonard, has continued to compose. “We’ll have five brand-new songs in the set [for the Ridgefield show],” she says. “Maybe more. They’re being added as they’re written.”
Ridgefield Playhouse
This article appears in June 2025.
