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.
50 YEARS FAITHFUL I’m out of the house about noon. On many Sundays I go to a Buddhist meeting on the Upper West Side near my old apartment. That’s where I’ve practiced most of my life; our apartment on the Upper East Side is still sort of a new situation. Next year will be 50 years since I started practicing Buddhism. I started when I was 16. My whole family started back then.
NO STEEPLES, NO SHOES I’m often running late, so I’ll probably take an Uber to the meeting. There are usually between five and 10 people there, depending on who’s around. The meetings are at people’s homes, and the one I go to is at the apartment of this guy named Gary. It’s not like church. You just go in your street clothes, and you’re asked to take your shoes off. We chant together — that has a musical sound — and we talk about different tenets of Buddhism, and we share our experiences in faith. I’ve known many of the people I see at the meetings since I was a teenager. But there’s always some turnover, and there’s always some new people joining.
MAKING AN APPEARANCE Sometimes I see my mom, Pat Vega, there. She lives on the Upper West Side. Sometimes beforehand we’ll say, “Are you going?” to coordinate and sometimes I think I’ll see her there, but she doesn’t show up. She had me when she was 18 and my father was 19. Then they split up after maybe a year, and she met my stepfather, Ed Vega. They were young parents in the ’60s, and they definitely went through a lot of changes. My mom is a character. She wears silk caftan-type things and gets her nails done and usually has her hair dyed purple or pink.
IN A BRUNCHY MOOD If my mom is at the meeting, we’ll do one of two things after: We’ll either go back to my mom’s or we’ll go out to eat. There’s a restaurant at 105th and Broadway called the Ellington where we can have brunchy sort of food. If I haven‘t had an egg in the morning, I’ll have avocado toast with poached eggs. And if I’m desperate for caffeine I’ll have a cup of cappuccino.
DANCERS, TOURISTS When I’m finished with my mom I like to go home, and Paul and I will walk for an hour in Central Park. We love to go around the Delacorte Clock. It’s beautiful. Sometimes if you’re there on the hour or the half-hour the animals do a little dance, this little twirling thing, as the clock chimes. It’s very charming. All the tourists stand and watch it. It’s one of our favorite things.
INCOGNITO No one ever recognizes me or wants an autograph. Once maybe 20 years ago a guy stopped me and said, “Hi, Suzanne.” When people see me they aren’t sure it’s really me, because I tend to look different in every photograph. Most of the time I just blend right in, unless I’ve been on TV recently.
THE RIGHT WORDS My day sort of revolves around Paul’s needs and whatever’s going on with him. He had a very bad case of Covid that he caught on Christmas Day of 2022, and right after that he had two strokes. There are a few songs on the new album that deal with that sort of tangentially. He’s struggling — that’s not the right word. He’s recovering and progressing. It’s mostly his speech center that was affected, so he’s learning to speak again. But he’s very mobile, very independent. He makes his own breakfast and lunch.
OUI OUI When we come home from our walk, I study language. Every day I study with Duolingo. I’m learning mostly French because I find it difficult, but I love it. I also study Spanish because I spoke it as a child and I’m trying to learn more adult Spanish, which is very different. If I’m going to be on tour in a certain country like Germany or the Netherlands, I’ll try studying that language. I’ve been told I’m good at it. When I was in Paris last December, the Parisians thought I was French.
SHE’S GOT ISSUES Another app I use is Resistbot. That’s been helpful in terms of corresponding with my elected representatives. I’ll scroll around and find issues I feel are important and send emails about them.
THE TWO OF US Even if I’ve gone out for lunch, Paul and I very often will go out for dinner, which I love. I’ll have a martini and Paul doesn’t; he’ll have cranberry juice. We go to a local place, generally just the two of us. We’re there a lot.
HEADLINES OR HONEYMOONERS When we get home, we’ll see what’s on TV. If we’re not watching political news, we’re watching TCM or “The Honeymooners.” I love Jackie Gleason, a comic genius.
SACRED I have an altar at home. Every day I chant and do my prayers there in the morning, and I conclude my day the same way. The prayer itself takes about five minutes, and I try to chant for 15 minutes.
ENLIGHTENED, TOO On my altar I have a vase of greens. Sometimes there are flowers mixed with the greens, or a bowl of fruit. There’s one candle or two candles and a tray of ashes where I burn incense. The main part looks like a cabinet. It’s called a butsudan in Japanese. The cabinet opens up, and inside the cabinet is a scroll. This is what I chant to. There’s a meaning in the scroll — it’s sort of a visual depiction of the enlightened life of the man who inscribed the scroll, Nichiren Daishonin. There are all these characters on it. When I chant, I’m fusing my life with his written life. I’m bringing up my enlightened life form within myself.
MELLOW OUT I end the day at midnight with a sleepy time cocoa situation. There’s a whole bunch of these cocoas. Some of them have melatonin, some of them have magnesium. The one I drink most often is called MoonBrew, which is a little more mellow and doesn’t have melatonin. Melatonin gives me edgy weird dreams.
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