05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How Suzanne Vega Spends Her Day Off Tour
Longtime fans of the singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega may not know that her 1987 hit 'Luka' was inspired by the name of a child who used to play in front of the Upper West Side building where she once lived.
Or that New York City started factoring into her songwriting well before then — her family moved to Manhattan when she was 2, and not much has uprooted her since then.
Her 10th studio album, 'Flying with Angels,' came out in May, and this fall, she'll be on tour. Ms. Vega, 65, and her husband, Paul Mills, 73, a retired lawyer, live on the Upper East Side in an apartment outfitted with an altar, where she prays and chants twice daily. She is a Nichiren Buddhist.
On a recent Sunday, Ms. Vega shared how she spends the day when she is not touring.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited.
ROOF TAR? I wake up more or less at the same time every day, between 8 and 9, unless I need to get up at 5 or something to get an Uber to the airport. I like to have time to myself. I make a pot of tea and read the newspaper. In the winter I make a tea called lapsang souchong, which is smoky and smells the way you might imagine roof tar smelling. It's really comforting when it's cold. But I've recently switched over to regular English breakfast tea, PG Tips. Sometimes I'll eat a piece of toast with butter so I don't upset my stomach, but I don't get into breakfast until an hour or two later. We ease our way into the day.
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