Acoustic singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega and heavy-metal veterans Slayer don't have much in common, but their new albums both ask questions of God that poets have raised for centuries. Why must there be suffering and trouble? Why must the good be laid low? For Slayer, the answer's simple. They've titled their latest God Hates Us All (American). But Vega's art has always been more complex, not to mention quieter. So in her "Penitent," there's no glib conclusion -- just the questions left hanging as both a challenge to Heaven and an unanswered wish for guidance.

"I spent a couple years feeling that way," she explains, "so I left it open-ended for that reason. I've been in a state quite often where I'm looking for a response from the Universe, or I'd start looking for omens or signs to point in the right direction to help figure out what exactly is expected -- and wondering if once I'd find out, could I do it?"

For the 42-year-old Vega, who plays the Berklee Performance Center this Wednesday, much of the impetus for that feeling was her 1998 divorce from producer Mitchell Froom. They began dating and then married after working together on her 99.9[[ordmasculine]] F in 1992. But "Penitent" has taken on a broader context after the attack on the World Trade Center. "Right now it gets a huge response, especially when people hear it on the record," she says over the phone from her Manhattan home. "It must have something to do with the way people are feeling."

Feelings are the heart of Vega's new Songs in Red and Gray (A&M). In the past she's written mostly about characters, like the abused child in her 1987 breakthrough hit "Luka," and places, like 1990's "Tom Diner," with a sense of distance that's reminiscent of Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen, two of her most obvious influences. This time she's penned an emotional song cycle fueled by her split with Froom and connected by a sense of yearning and hurt that often yields to empowerment. The album's best numbers -- like "Penitent," the radio-embraced "Widow's Walk," and the edgy search for clarity "Soap and Water" -- plumb the poetry of despair yet conclude on notes of determined self-preservation. It's a survivor's record, as wistful and deep as that brand implies. Was it tough for Vega to draw nakedly on her own painful experience?

"To be honest, I just went right for it," she says. "The first song I wrote was `Soap and Water' and the second was `Widow's Walk,' and at that point I began to think that maybe I could write about other relationships or other things, because there are only three songs that are specifically to my ex-husband. But all of the songs have a flavor of, if not this break-up, other break-ups."

That flavor is enhanced by Vega's collaboration with producer Rupert Hine, whose credits include Duncan Sheik, the Power Station, Stevie Nicks, and British prog-folk artists Anthony Phillips, Chris DeBurgh, and Camel. Inspired by Vega's acoustic demos, Hine used her clear-toned voice and guitar as the album's spine, fleshing out the details with textural touches like organ-like pads of slide guitar and strings and woodwinds. It's a return to form for Vega, whose previous two studio efforts -- 99.9[[ordmasculine]] F and Nine Objects of Desire -- were produced by Froom. Both of those discs were as much his as hers. Froom is a great conceptualist with a knack for fracturing blocks of rhythm and whipping sounds into a stark and often hallucinogenic swirl on all of his productions. "It was fun working with Mitchell," Vega acknowledges, "because a lot of those songs were about alienation. His arrangements can distort everything. But if you're going to express elements other than that, it was better working with Rupert. The difference between this album and the ones with Mitchell is that there's more of an emotional tone that Rupert brought out."

Hine's own recent divorce helped him relate to Vega's new material. "He heard four songs I'd done as an acoustic demo and was really moved by `Widow's Walk' and `Soap and Water.' Then the opportunity came for us to do a couple of songs, and I was really surprised how much I liked them. So we decided to go ahead. For me, it was about playing my guitar again, so I left a lot up to Rupert and would only interfere if there was something I didn't like. And even when there were things I didn't like, I usually grew to like them -- like the strings in `(I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May.' So I tried to give him as much free rein as possible."

And the album's title? "The red stands for passions and the heart, and gray is for the gray matter of the brain. Red is also for youthfulness, and gray is for maturity. So in many ways it's about bringing together opposites."

Another factor in honing the tunes on Songs in Red and Gray was Vega's re-enlistment in the Greenwich Village Songwriter's Exchange, a songwriting workshop run by Jack Hardy, whose "St. Clair" closes the CD. She had been a member of the group during her apprenticeship in the Village folk scene, from 1980 to 1985. "The songwriters' group was great; it gave me confidence. I knew that if I had written something that was too personal, they would tell me. Of course, there were some songwriters who wanted to know more details, like `What did you argue about?' But I did feel that was going too far."

Although Vega's guitar is the album's musical glue, she isn't playing as much of it during her current tour as she'd like -- at least for a few more weeks. On Labor Day weekend she had a bicycle accident that fractured a bone in her arm. "It's healing wonderfully, and I'm up to playing four or five songs a night." As a single mother, she's chosen to tour behind Songs in Red and Gray in bursts of several days on and then off the road. And she's backed by two of the disc's core players: guitarist Gerry Leonard (who also triggers a variety of samples, so sounds from her modernist albums with Froom can be reproduced) and bassist Mike Visceglia. Drummer Doug Yule completes her group. "We're playing a mix of new and old material, figuring out what works for the moment" as the tour winds through its year-long course.

Is performing this batch of personal songs in concert difficult? "Once I get on stage, I'm in the same mindset, whether I'm singing about myself or someone else. When I'm in performance, the whole point is, `Does this connect with the audience?' But these songs are harder to talk about when I'm doing interviews. I figured I'd just be doing what everybody else does; it seems to me that so many people write about personal details. But talking about these songs -- well, I don't know if I'll be writing like this again. Maybe the next time it will be complete fiction or deal with social issues, which could be really appropriate, because everybody is thinking more broadly since September 11."

Fiction, however, is high on Vega's to-do list. The daughter of novelist Ed Vega, she's been penning poetry and lyrics for more than 30 years. In 1999, her first book, The Passionate Eye: The Collected Writing of Suzanne Vega (Spike/Avon) came out, gathering journalism, short stories, and a variety of other writings. It appeared in paperback this April.

"Next I'd really like to write a novel -- a big sprawling historical-fiction novel that spans centuries and continents. And if I can't handle that," she laughs, "maybe a nice short book would do."

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Suzanne Vega plays the Berklee Performance Center this Wednesday, November 14. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m.; call (617) 228-6000.

Issue Date: November 9 - 15, 2001