by Suzanne Vega

With some albums, to fully enjoy them takes some extra knowledge that you have to acquire outside of the tracks and liner notes themselves. For example, Eric Clapton's "Layla" is a beautiful song, but it becomes something more when you learn that Clapton wrote it as a love song to his best friend's wife. Similarly, Fleetwood Mac's album Rumours contains all sorts of hidden messages sent by the three songwriters of the group to their respective exes: Buckingham to Nicks, "packing up, shacking up's all you want to do" from "Go Your Own Way" and Nicks to Buckingham, "players only love you when they're playing" from "Dreams." Some are obvious--Roger Water's paeon to his father in Pink Floyd's The Final Cut--while others take a kind of fanaticism to decipher (the ongoing battle between John Fogarty and his ex-manager in songs like "Zanz Kant Danz").

Between Suzanne Vega's last studio offering, 1996's Nine Objects of Desire, and this release, several things occurred in her life that provided the germ for the songs and the tone of Songs in Red and Gray. Both her two previous albums had been produced by her husband, Mitchell Froom (they had married in 1994, between the two albums he produced), but the new album is produced with Rupert Hine. Vega also separated from Froom in 1998, retaining custody of their daughter, Ruby Froom.

The change in producers is the first thing you notice as you start listening to Songs in Red and Gray, which sounds much more like Vega's first couple of albums in their intimacy and the relationship between Vega's soft vocal and the accompiament. While it's not a total return--most of the songs sport more than the sparse guitar and soft synthesizer work that is the focus of songs like "Marlene on the Wall" or "Knight Moves" (both from her eponymous first album)--there's nothing like the industrial clanging or heavily sampled guitar that Froom brought to "Blood Makes Noise" (from 99.9F) and "No Cheap Thrill" (from Nine Objects of Desire). Froom's production was complicated and took a lot of risks, some of which worked, but often was at odds with the kind of folk tradition of Vega's compositions and lyrics. Some of this risk is still present in Hine's production, but it is much more muted, such as the syncopated backbeat in "Solitaire" and the calliope sound that bridges the lyrics of "Machine Ballerina."

Once you start listening to the lyrics, however, you start to get glimpses of the aftermath of Froom and Vega's partnership that is not part of her sound but that of her life. The results are often startingly confessional, masked only by the smoothness of her delivery and the softness of her tone, which makes even what could be the harshest criticism somewhat reflective and apologetic. We shouldn't be too surprised--I find it hard to imagine Vega ripping someone to shreds a la Elvis Costello.

Consider these lines from "If I Were a Weapon":

if you were a weapon
a hammer's what you'd be
blunt and heavy at the end
and coming down on me

or even this from "Machine Ballerina":

Am I an afternoon's pastime?
a thing on a string
to be thrown and retrieved
like a phone call received
on somebody's birthday
to tease and delight
and then say goodnight
and then just say goodbye?

What leavens these kinds of accusations are the parts where Vega reveals her complicity in the breakup, from acknowledging that the fault wasn't necessarily in Froom that makes up the strongest song on this album, "Soap and Water." In it, she sings to her daughter, "Daddy's a dark riddle/Mama's a handful of thorns/you are my little kite/caught up again in the household storms." This ability to reflect on how the change might be affecting her child is one of Vega's strengths, to remove herself from the scene while also being a participant. Like a good novelist, she strives to discover not only the motivation of her narrator, but also the other characters in her passion play.

This is not an album that is instantly rewarding, as nothing here has the instant hook of "Luka" or "Tom's Diner." On repeated listens, however, it insinuates itself inside your psyche until you start to admire not only the phrasing but also the gentle way it is presented to you.