Inside Suzanne Vega’s world: The diners, the muses and the music
Saturday, 6 June 2026
Before Tom’s Diner blew up as Seinfeld’s homely diner, it was a worldwide hit in Suzanne Vega’s song Tom’s Diner, about an alienated breakfaster missing her lover. Whenever the media are in town, Vega says they want to take her there — for “the visual” – but there are other diners in her Upper East Side neighbourhood she prefers. “I only go to Tom’s with journalists.”
Tom’s has been remixed and sampled by Snoop Dogg, Beyonce, Drake and Tupac Shakur as Dopefiend’s Diner. Classic rousing Shakur, I say, as we video chat, Vega from her New York City home pre-dinner.
“It’s amazing. It was one of the first covers that came out, decades ago. Recently I bought a T-shirt with Tupac’s image on it, and I thought, let me listen to Dopefiend’s Diner again. It’s, you know, very moving.”
Forty-one years since her self-titled debut album, Vega’s reflective songs are still embedding into popular culture. Her cinematic Headshots zings in the smash series Love Story on Disney +. “It’s got great comments. I’m interested in Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and JFK Jr. I’m a fan of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, her style and everything.”
Read more:
The man behind the All Blacks’ mindset on legacy, leadership and belonging
Making an acting career of cultural responses to political traumas
Stephen K Amos on laughter, royals and the magic of the room
Vega’s 10-studio album song catalogue includes Blood Makes Noise, Cracking, Left of Center, Marlene on the Wall, Caramel and Luka. Two of her prominent albums, 99.9F° (1992) and Nine Objects of Desire (1996), were produced by Crowded House’s Mitchell Froom, her then husband.
Her abiding memories of her multiple tours to New Zealand are joining Crowded House on stage for an encore, and Neil Finn’s home and hospitality. “Neil’s humour, his graciousness and his songwriting abilities are just top-notch.”
Vega’s significant friends and/or collaborators include Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.
Before her covers of Walk on the Wild Side on her recent European tour, 19-year-old Vega’s first-date concert was Lou Reed at Columbia University. “At first, I was really shocked and upset by Lou. It was that era where he was pretending to shoot up [heroin] on stage, which I found really repellent.”
She asked her date, why did you take me here? During the second half of the show, Reed put all his paraphernalia away and Vega could focus on the music. “The lyrics and the stories in the lyrics were amazing to me. So blunt and fearless that I went from being deeply repelled to being very attracted to him and to his work. Mind-blowing.”
Seven years of Reed study later — in 1986 — Vega was interviewed by the man himself for his MTV show 120 Minutes. They became friends and remained so until he died in 2013. He became a big artistic and personal inspiration. “Our friendship had a deepening over time and was very moving and interesting … If he was in a bad mood, I would stay away from him. He was never cuddly. I had a deep respect for him.”
Novelist Carson McCullers (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter) is another enduring inspiration. As McCullers’ persona, Vega has performed a youthful one-woman play, contemporary PBS film, and 2016 album Lover, Beloved. Tracks like Instant of the Hour After, We of Me, Carson’s Last Supper and Lover, Beloved channel McCullers’ deep uplifting humanism, I praise.
“Exactly. That’s what I was hoping to tap into. Thank you. She’s become a constant companion; she’s never gone out of date or style, for me. Her beliefs, who she was as a person, I feel she was really ahead of her time. She was able to write from almost any perspective with a great deal of humanity: black, white, male, female, gay.
“She was not always kind in her private life, which made her interesting to play. She could be a real character. She could be cruel, she could be sarcastic; but she was also very vulnerable herself.”
A fan of a martini with dinner, to wind down Vega imbibes Moon Brew, the magnesium- infused cocoa. “How do you know that? It’s true. Melatonin gives me crazy, snappy, bizarre dreams. This other stuff is very, very calming, and I like it. It’s how I go to sleep. Noisy brain,” Vega gestures, characteristically animated.
Last year’s Flying with Angels occasions Vega’s September New Zealand gigs. Album highlights include Last Train From Mariupol (with daughter Ruby Froom’s haunting backing vocals), and Chambermaid, her witty and playful adaptation of Dylan’s I Want You.
She once opened for him in Norway. “When I do Chambermaid live, I feel a thrill. I feel communion with getting into Bob Dylan’s mind and playing some of his chords and stealing a bit here and there and sort of occupying the space that he sometimes occupies. It’s great fun.”
Irish Gerry “Spooky Ghost” Leonard, the new album’s producer, serves as guitarist and tour musical director. David Bowie snuck off with Leonard for Heathen (2002), Reality (2003) and The Next Day (2013). Leonard was a guitarist and musical director for Bowie’s A Reality Tour over 2003-04. Jemaine Clement and many others say the Wellington gig was the best they ever saw.
The first time Vega saw Bowie she was utterly charmed. “I just kept going back to see David’s shows many times after that. To learn about stagecraft, to see how he dressed himself, to see what his stage patter was like. He was a master, really, at all these different art forms. I’m still amazed by what he was able to pull off.”
Vega adds Leonard is very special guitarist. “A real artist in how he sculpts sound, how he works with delays, loops; and we really have fun challenging each other. My husband once said that I’m so much more of a songwriter than he needs and he’s so much more of a guitarist than I need. I’m always throwing things at Gerry and he has to rise to the challenge. He figured out a way to do Blood Makes Noise convincingly, so that it’s blistering and it melts people’s faces. It’s really, really exciting when he does it. He keeps me on my toes when we go on tour.”
Leonard’s line “I love playing live. The immediacy and communion of it” resonates. His back-up can allow her to put down her guitar. “I’ll dance or I’ll get right up into the audience’s faces. There’s a thrill about that, of getting close to people, of responding to people who love Tom’s Diner and want to dance or move. That’s very vibrant.”
The 66-year-old has recently returned from an hour’s walk around Central Park with her husband Paul Mills, a poet and retired free-speech lawyer, as she does most days. An inspiration for at least half a dozen of her songs, they’ve been happily married for more than 20 years. Mills is still recovering from catching a nasty bout of Covid on Christmas Day 2022, directly followed by two strokes.
Vega’s life has had its challenges. Her beloved Luka draws on her childhood experience of child abuse. Prince wrote her a lovely emotional letter to thank her for it. He came to her Minnesota show with two bodyguards, got up and danced for Luka (fourth on the setlist), and then left. “Prince invited me to visit Paisley Park, but I thought I’d do it next time.”
Vega played Zagreb during 1990, an uncomfortable atmosphere just before Yugoslavia shattered into civil war. She was the first female artist to headline Glastonbury and play its main stage, in 1989. A deranged female stalker was threatening violence to Vega’s bassist and — Vega discovered shortly before she was due to go on stage — her. Scotland Yard told her not to go on. “Of course I am,” she countered. The detectives would only let her on with one of their bulletproof vests.
“This Scotland Yard guy was probably twice my size. So I had to get into his vest and then they had to gaffer-tape me into it so it would stay closed, and put my big assistant’s denim jacket on over the top. It was uncomfortable.
“The show was nerve-racking, but fortunately nothing happened. Every song seemed to take a long, long time. Mikey had two bodyguards by him. My nicknames for them were Mr Clean and GI Joe. Anton came to me and said, sing Luka and get off stage. We had to come off early to respect a curfew, because of the cows in the next field. They were upset by music that went past midnight.”
Suzanne Vega plays Auckland and Wellington in September. Flying with Angels Tour. Tickets: Ticketmaster.
Feedback: Alexander.bisley@gmail.com