Album: Solitude Standing
Year: 1987
. . .
On the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Content Warning Division, Suzanne Vega’s breakthrough hit, “Luka”, catapulted her to the top tier of late-1980s alt-rock singer songwriters, and was the first hit spawned from her second album, 1987’s Solitude Standing.
Thanks to both KFSR and Holly, I was familiar with Vega, as she was seen as more alternative than mainstream, and her 1985 self-titled debut contains several good songs, to be sure. But “Luka” was another level, even as it’s slightly tied to its time period by those horrible chiming keyboards.
But, sadly, its tale of abuse is timeless.
My name is Luka
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes, I think you’ve seen me before
It’s a difficult route that Vega has plotted here: singing in the first person as the abused child could go all kinds of wrong, but she nails a kind of flat empathy, as if Luka doesn’t really wanna tell the story even though they really wanna tell their story at the same time. Also: helping, a heartbreakingly gorgeous melody to match the heartbreakingly sad lyrics, and atmospheric backing vocals from Shawn Colvin.
If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight
Just don’t ask me what it was
Just don’t ask me what it was
Just don’t ask me what it was
As the song moves on, it just gets unbearably sad: Luka taking the blame, making excuses, telling you its none of your business: all the things that victims of abuse do to rationalize and try to survive a situation they see no way out of, climaxing with the unbearably lovely second chorus.
They only hit until you cry
And after that, you don’t ask why
You just don’t argue anymore
You just don’t argue anymore
You just don’t argue anymore
All of this is slightly leavened by Marc Shulman’s guitar breaks, which try their best to distract you, but actually end up giving you time to think about what you just heard, daring you to burst into tears at any time, especially at the very end as she starts stacking the choruses on top of each other.
Given the heaviness of the subject matter, it seems weird that “Luka” was a hit. But it was a massive massive hit here, making it to #3 on the Billboard Charts, and helping to push Solitude Standing to #11 on the album charts on its way to being her only platinum record. I was going to say that it was the only time she got anywhere near the top of the charts here, but of course the DNA re-make of “Tom’s Diner” a couple of years later made it to #5. So not quite the quintessential one-hit wonder, but pretty close.
That said, “Luka” was hardly the only great song Suzanne Vega recorded, as we’ll see in the next couple of days.
“Luka”
“Luka” Official Music Video
“Luka” Live on Late Night With David Letterman, 1987
“Luka” Live at Montreux, 2004
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