Suzanne Vega is an artist who I happened upon courtesy of the UK BBC television channel’s long running music series ‘Whistle Test’ in October 1985. It wasn’t the kind of style I’d have thought I would normally like, but there was something intriguing and ‘Marlene On The Wall’ proved to be catchy and a minor hit. Intriguing enough that I bought the debut album in early 1986 and became a firm fan from then on. There was a certain cool elegance and mysteriousness to the music on the whole and not the straight ahead folk I was expecting (other than perhaps ‘The Queen and the Soldier’, which I’ve never cared for).
Fast forward to 1987 and ‘Luka’ became her biggest hit to date. It’s likely become overfamiliar by now, it seemed to be everywhere at one point. In the UK, Suzanne was given a lot of love by her label when it came to single releases – and in particular by way of high quality live recordings to use as B sides and extra tracks, as opposed to, for example, just peeling existing album tracks to include on the flip sides.
For the UK single of ‘Luka’, A&M went for multiple formats – 7”, 10”, 12” and what we have featured here – a three-track cassette single in a fairly unique stickered plastic clip case. The 10” and 12” variations are puzzling, since they are identical, no difference in tracks at all – seemed wasteful. The 7” single, as you might expect, included only one of the live tracks on the B side.
In short, this cassingle is pretty well the equivalent of the 10” and 12” versions that included ‘Luka’ on the A side and live versions of ‘Straight Lines’ and ‘Neighborhood Girls’ that had been recorded live pretty much a year earlier on 27 April 1986 at the Piccadilly Theatre for Capital Radio London. A couple of nice, pretty faithful versions they are too. The same radio show recording had also been plundered for B sides of earlier singles too. Would be nice to have a full release of the show someday, assuming the tapes still exist – just the kind of thing that Record Store Day might be suited for.
Of note, I don’t think these particular live versions have ever resurfaced on CD format. There was a later (1988) US CD single of ‘Luka’ that included two live tracks (‘Left Of Center’ and ‘Neighborhood Girls’), but these were totally different live recordings from a 17 December 1987 show at the Windsor Hall, Bournemouth, UK.