Tales From the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles

Suzanne Vega's eight studio album is Tales From the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles, and though the title suggests a Yes concept album from about 1973, it's much more sedate, though the Tarot card theme threads throughout. As an owner of all eight of her albums, I think it's her strongest since 99.9F over twenty years ago.

Again her records defy categorization, but this one is closer to the coffee-house folk that began her career. It opens with "Crack in the Wall," which is sort of an introduction to the set, as it describes seeing a world unfold in a fissure in plaster:

"A world of wonder lay without,
It was all of nature's calling,
With field and forest, clouds and sun
Cascades of salt water falling."

Different Tarot characters pop up, such as the Fool, who hates the Queen of Pentacles for her tyranny, and the Knight of Wands, who seems to be looking on scenes of devastation. I'm not quite sure what it all means, but toward the end of the album we get a song called "Song of the Stoic," which is about the acceptance of death:

"Now I turn around to face
The specter of my age
My soul it lights my body
Like a bird will light its cage

I see that lost horizon
I hope it brings me peace
I look forward to the day
At last my body knows release."

Vegas is 54, which seems young to be thinking things like this, but early in the song she sings, "More years are behind me now than years that are ahead," and when you put it that way, well, she's right.

The songs I like best don't seem to fit the Tarot theme. "I Never Wear White" is a cool indie-rock style song, explaining why, like Johnny Cash, Vega tends to wear black:

"I never wear white
White is for virgins
Children in summer
Brides in the park

My color is black, black, black
Black is for secrets
Outlaws and dancers
For the poet of the dark."

My favorite song is "Don't Uncork What You Can't Contain," an upbeat toe-tapper with elements of Middle Eastern music (it's about a genie). The last song, "Horizon (There Is a Road), is dedicated to Vaclav Havel:

"I knew a man
He lived in jail
And his tale
Is often told

He dreamed that line that he
Called the divine
And when he was free
He led his country"

The production by Gerry Leonard, who co-wrote many of the songs with Vega (although all the lyrics are hers) is top notch. I listened to this album several times over the past week and loved it each time.