That's all, folk

Nearly 40 years since Solitude Standing, Suzanne Vega has mastered the art of resilience.

- BY RUSSELL BAILLIE

When Suzanne Vega gets the message she is late for our interview, she is on an afternoon walk in Central Park, near her apartment. Rather than head home, she finds a park bench to talk, her phone occasionally picking up the conversation of passersby. It’s very New York, a place where she has lived and given her own soundtrack to for much of her 66 years, and is the setting for her biggest early hits Tom's Diner and Luka. It is cooling down now after another hot day, says a pale, sun-frocked Vega.

At the end of the northern summer spent playing in Europe, she returns to New Zealand, one of the few places where her 1987 3 million-selling sophomore album Solitude Standing went to No 1.

That was before the pop spotlight dimmed and she settled in for the long haul of the literate singer-songwriter with occasional forays into more arty territory. Last year’s acclaimed Flying with Angels, her first in nine years, was her 10th studio album, not counting the four acoustic albums of her back catalogue recorded in 2010 to reclaim ownership of the songs from her previous labels. Anyway, it seems the perfect setting to start with a Big Apple question...

If you could, complete this sentence: If it weren't for New York...