The second album by
Suzanne Vega as well as the title track from it. It was released in 1987: the tracks are
The oddity is the track "Tom's Diner", which is a cappella at the beginning and has just the music at the end - i.e. the words and lyrics are at opposite ends of the album.
I personally like the title track and "Gypsy" most on this; they're more upbeat, less of the soporific that Suzanne gets criticised for, and which I can sort of see the justice of.
"Calypso" is about the nymph in the Odyssey. "Luka" has disturbing lyrics about just saying I ran into a door - "just don't ask me how I am". "Night Vision" is after a poem by Paul Eluard, and mentions typical cubist symbols like "the table, the guitar, the empty glass". "Language" has some nice lines, "if language were liquid / it would be rushing in / instead here we are / in a silence more eloquent / than any word could ever be".
The title track is spooky, but I find it makes me excited and sad and hopeful at the same time. Solitude (depression? letting-go? freedom?) is touching you. Some really deep fantastic irruption is visible flickering on the opposite side of the room.
Solitude stands by the window
She turns her head as I walk in the room
I can see by her eyes she's been waiting
Standing in the slant of the late afternoon
And she turns to me with her hand extended
Her palm is split with a flower with a flame
etc.