After the ‘Garbage’ concert I went home to finish the article about Suzanne Vega. Shirley Manson helped admit what I’ve always felt silly to admit: I really love Suzanne Vega.

Her latest albums, didn’t top the charts, but still, instead of being discouraged and giving up, Suzanne was immured and explains: "I’m in some kind of personal space, like my heroes. Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan who have always existed in their own sphere and that’s what I’ve always admired about them".

Q: Can you locate yourself on the music map today?

A: It’s not as easy as it was in 1983. It was very clear than, I’d say I was on the right of Joni Mitchell and on the left of Patti Smith. Now it’s far more complicated, there are more women and more music styles. I don’t really feel that my music is similar to some other musician’s music. I’m not mainstream, not top of the charts, but not in the underground, because I’ve had a few pop hits.

A: I listen to everything. Some have talent and some don’t. If you’re referring to the Spice Girls, one can only believe that they have strong will to succeed.

A: Yes, things happen very fast these days. When I started out, I had to work very hard for eight years. I had to take humiliations like performing to Japanese tourists descending off buses. It’s different today. You reach the top easily and therefore you fall down easily as well. It’s a shallow way of doing things – selling albums before learning how to perform.

But all in all, these are good times for women. When I started out, I was something new and peculiar, because around me there were only woman of images – Madonna, Cindy Lauper. I had to dress up, sell some kind of an image, some kind of personality, while I was trying to express myself as a woman and forward a message with my words, so I seem peculiar. Today, women, especially talented ones, have more options.

Q: No matter how we look at it, men will always grow older more nicely.

A: I guess it will be interesting to find out what will happen to me. As a young woman, I’ve never felt pretty. I knew that with a little effort I can look nice, but that wasn’t my strength. I think I was most beautiful carrying Ruby, and I was 34 and suddenly something so completely different came out. I believe that you can reinvent yourself when you grow older. For example, Chrissie Hynde has her own way of being beautiful but still remaining loyal to herself. And, of course, there’s Cher.

A: No. (laughs) I don’t believe in hospitalizing myself, traumatizing my body, just to present some kind of front to the world. People hardly care.

A: I believe that real affection comes from ones personality and spirit, and that’s what so appealing. A face like this white flat wall, is just not interesting. Living in America, I can say it’s not accidental. We do have an obsession for light, casual things, but I also know there’s a hunger for something more profound. The violence is a sign for missing soul and values. With all the fast food, fast beauty and instant solutions for every problem, no wonder people feel they cannot communicate with one another, and it ends up with serial killers.

A: Not for the past few years, although I have found some comfort in Buddhism. I began practicing with my parents when I was 16. It demands a lot of time each and every day, a lot of devotion.

A: Maybe it was my will to escape my family’s being so orthodox. I wanted to see how my life would be like without it. What I liked about Buddhism was the way to it expresses gratitude and hope. Not just to lay back and hope, but to pray long and hard.

But I don’t miss that. It was very strict, especially as my stepfather had become some kind of a leader, and so it was even harder being a member of his family under his leadership.

Q: You could have contributed a lot for the cause of Buddhism.

A: We were supposed to convey the message of world peace through individual awakening. I had hopes to use Buddhism and help people. I know I could. In the end I didn’t feel comfortable with the aggressive missionary side of it. I prefer a less political style.

A: It’s interesting. On the one hand, Buddhism has existed long before Madonna. On the other hand, I don’t think it does any harm. It’s ironic that only now, in this stage of her career, after years of saying let’s use sex to get what we want, does Madonna change her attitude. It’s very selfish. I don’t really care, and I don’t judge her for that. Madonna is just like that building over there, it’s there, it’s very huge, but I don’t have to enter or exit it.

A: No, not really. She’s always been a woman with bigger personality and bigger presence. People compared us because we started out at the same time. There were moments I was inspired by her and there were times I was embarrassed by her behavior. I don’t feel that she affects my life in any way. If we were at a party together, she’d be dancing on the center of the dance floor and I’d be hiding in some corner of the room.

A: It is a horrible feeling. So, my memories from Israel are affected by that incident. But, I also have fond memories. Especially I remember the quality of the sidewalks in the old parts, in Jerusalem, in particularly. The sidewalks shine because so many people have walked on them. Some kind of quality of polish. I remember I saw a child running and falling and a soldier picking him up. There was an emotional quality to these days in Israel. Wow! It's really silly with the automatic sprinkler system story.

A: We’ll be in Israel a few days and I will do some promoting. And we have Mitchell’s family in the kibbutz (**Kibbutz ma’agan Michael**). Ruby, my daughter, who’s almost 5 years old, has seen pictures of them, and she knows their names. Mitchell used to say that it’s the best place to raise children, that you can walk in the street freely and everybody loves you.

"It’s strange. I couldn’t understand it. All the time, he used to say he had to work in LA and that it will take time. Now he says he’s moved here to see Ruby. I reminded him that she’d been there all those years we were married. Well, never mind. When he’s in town, he has lunch and dinner with her and watches videos with her. But he really likes to work. He’s just worked with Randy Newman and other million things. I can’t remember."

In the upcoming Manhattan fall, Vega will come back from her tour, sit in her living room with all her notebooks, that she never stops to fill, and with the guitar. She tried once to record at home but she decided that home is for pajamas, for food, for feeling comfortable and being with Ruby. When she feels a song is completed she takes it to the studio and starts working on it. She hasn’t chosen a producer yet, but surely it won’t be Froom. "Mitchell used to bring me bass or drums clips and I’d say "Let me see if I can write lyrics for that". Soon I realized that I’d become completely dependent on his technical abilities to finish songs on time. I want to go back to using my acoustic guitars, and that maybe a producer like Butch Vig will come up with interesting ideas for more a modern production.

A: It’s important for me that it will be real. Making a soft and acoustic album is not my style, I don’t write about that. Therefore, from the beginning there was a mixture of dirty guitars. Not only a beautiful voice and a nice face. I suppose that my record company would be pleased if I did an album like Jewel’s, but it’s sound won’t have to be modern. It will depend on the lyrics.

A: I don’t really know. Probably like always. Identity, the possibilities within romances, the difficulties of daily life, the difficulty in communicating with some one else, my daughter. I write a lot for her and about her.

I write a diary for her. The truth is it’s for me too.

A: I don’t think about other people reading it. I guess my room is private.

A: Oh, yeah. I hope mine will be interesting, but most of it will be silly. I mainly fear that it will be boring, or that there will be so many details that no one will understand. Some times I think that people will read it, but it doesn’t make me censor.

A: Stuff I can’t share with other people.

A: My brain has a tendency to return to the same point all the time, so my friends and family get really tired listening to the same things. So, in order to spare them the boredom of my obsessions, I simply write about my thoughts. Whatever happens, I hope they’ll find a good editor because most of it is crap.

A: Yes. The first time I saw Tom’s Diner on ‘Seinfeld’ I thought it looked familiar. What’s ironic about it, is that I picked the most anonymous place, the most average place you could imagine. The truth is I haven’t been there the past 10 years, but I know it’s become a tourist’s place. I now eat at John’s Diner. It’s the new Tom’s. The last time I was in the neighborhood I saw Jerry Seinfeld passing by in his limousine and I though to myself, oh, that’s strange, it’s like being on a television show. But my entire life is filled with surprises and strange moments like these. Songs I’d thought would become hits, like ‘Left Of Center’, ‘Cheap Thrill’, were just ok. While Tom’s Diner, a song about breakfast in a diner and the sense of strangeness becomes this huge thing. And ‘Luka’, a small song, about a small kid, becomes my biggest hit. There are always strange things and as long as I think I can’t control them, it’s ok.

"If I’d say to you that my cat’s name is Kitty, it wouldn’t mean anything to you, but if I’d say his name is Cow you’d understand he’s very fat with black spots. It’s more accurate but it doesn’t fit a song".

A: It’s not about AIDS, like most people think, but about other things. First of all, it’s about fear and anxiety. When you have a panic attack, you can hear the blood in your head and you start seeing black spots in front of your eyes. Besides, we’re made of blood, and it always scares us. In my life, family is a big issue. Blood relatives. I spent a big part of my life looking for my real father, after my mother had told me when I was 18 years old, that my father wasn’t the man I thought.

When Luka was a hit, I entered a phone booth and started calling all the people in south California who had my father’s name. He has quite a usual name; so most people just hung up on me. Finally I hired a private detective that found my father rather quickly. I sent him a letter. I told him that I hope he didn’t mind, but I’m his daughter and I’d really like to meet him, bit would understand if he didn’t want to.

He called me on the last day of that year. We spoke on the phone, and he mentioned there’s a singer with the same name as mine. I told him it was I, and he was really excited. The crazy thing is that he has looked for his parents as well and found out they were wandering musicians. We had to catch up 28 years. Today we’re in good connection and he sees Ruby a lot. We had a similar story and this subject has occupied me a lot. When I sing "Blood Sings," I speak about finding your bloodline, literally and figuratively.

A: The truth is nothing happened. Actually it’s about three different women, that I found myself drawn to. It was along time ago and nothing happened…

A: One used to travel all the time and send me postcards, the other had a girlfriend and the third informed me that I’m not gay.

A: It’s very complicated. Especially in this song. Go explain a fantasy you had 10 years ago. Every married couple has fantasies, but they don’t have to talk about them. We really didn’t have much choice. But I’m good at describing things from the side, from a distance and not do them.

Q: You do sound like a reporter in your songs.

A: Yes. I think it’s always been like that. I’ve always been someone on the outside, watching things. I do like interviewing.

A: Yes. I’ve even done it a little. I’ve interviewed, written short essays that were printed in all kinds of magazines (and some are collected in her new book, "The Passionate Eye") -- I’ve interviewed Phillip Glass after working with him and it was very interesting.

A: I’ve worked with him a couple of times but I wouldn’t say he’s a friend. He’s a good acquaintance.

A: I’ll feel very comfortable. I think I’m good at it, because I like imagining how it would be like being some one else. I can see people and try to think how it would seem to them or how they think. Why they chose to wear what they’re wearing, today of all days, what are their dreams.

A: Why I keep doing this.

A: Oh, I guess I have passion for this.

A: I dream about performing.

A: Most of them are nightmares. I’m playing in a small place, with three drunken people and I must keep on playing. It’s like I’m back being this little girl in an audition, trying to prove everybody I can make it. I suppose there’s still a part of me that feels I still have to prove something.

A: I don’t know. Maybe it’s something I can’t solve, because I only want to stay at home with my daughter, be a good mother, write good songs. Live a more profound life than the shallow life of constantly touring.

A: No, not while touring a lot. Not on an eight month touring. I’ve missed the season changes in my neighborhood, the daily things. I miss my friends and I’m tired of missing their birthdays and the important moments in their lives. I think that in my 40’s, I’ll be able to tour on summer time. Once a year, when Ruby’s not in school and we can go on the roads. Then I’ll have seasons. A time to leave and a time to come back home. This way I’ll be able to concentrate on the songs and stories and still live more naturally.

A: No. And you know what? This is the first time I don’t have a goal in my life. Most of my life I had a clear vision. An album, a husband, a daughter, a book. All these came true, and this is the first time that everything is open and there’s nothing specific. It’s an interesting feeling. The first time I don’t have a goal that drives me to be the best in something new.