Suzanne Vega on overnight fame and dark subject matter

Her massive 1987 hit brought her almost instant fame, but Suzanne Vega couldn’t reconcile her success with the dark subject matter of ‘Luca’, says Ed Power.

IN 1987, Suzanne Vega became very famous very quickly. In that year, her bruised, beautiful ballad ‘Luka’ was released to international acclaim. The accompanying album, Solitude Standing, topped charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Three decades on, she seems to be still coming to terms with her overnight promotion:

“It was overwhelming,” she says “There was a lot of hard work, which did get on top of me. I kept coming down sick.” The difficulty, as she saw it, was that Luka was about child abuse. How could she luxuriate in her popularity when it was built on such a heart-breaking subject? The guilt was horrible.