Notes:
I guess the origin of this song can be found
in "Woman in the Window" in the "Passionate Eye,
the collected writing of Suzanne Vega". The setting is
an alleyway and two windows facing each other. In one of the
apartments Suzanne is thinking about who to interview over sixty
for an English report. In the other sits a woman gazing down
the alley (like she does day after day). Suzanne's brother suggests
that she should interview the woman, and calls out to her. Suzanne
and the woman talk about the end of the war and the Depression.
During the Depression people started bobbing their hairs (which
can explain the cutting in the song).. She tells about how she
had a stroke, and that her sister and husband died suddenly
and they talk about some other things, too. [Ed.]
" I think I look less like a folk singer because I've been borderline,
really too skinny, and then I look like Patti Smith. I went from one
extreme to the other. I went sailing past the normal weight into this
other land of complete fragility. I've seen pictures where I look like
I've just come off heroin. Like, oh yes, this is Suzanne in her On
The Edge Days. I think what I was trying to do was be streamlined, and
kind of like the girl in "Straight Lines." I was trying to cut away all
the extra stuff in my life I didn't need, including weight, but I found
out that instead of being strong and simple, that I was cutting into
myself and I was really weak and not strong at all. SO I have to look
after taht now, because I'm not really a frail person and I hate feeling
frail."
Interview: "Vega Vision", Sounds Magazine, December 6, 1986 by Jane Simon
