MP3 | Suzanne Vega — ‘Gypsy’ (2010 acoustic version)

Originally released as the first single from Suzanne Vega’s second album, 1987′s Solitude Standing, the disappointing chart placing of ‘Gypsy’ was soon eclipsed by the huge successes of the album’s enduring hits ‘Luka’ and ‘Tom’s Diner’, but it’s clear that this romantic little ditty held great personal significance for its author. Now 32 years old (the song was written in 1978), Suzanne’s nostalgic remembrance of a whirlwind romance with a summer camp instructor, “a painter from Liverpool, England, who had found his way somehow into this camp teaching the boys anarchy, basically, and painting as well”, gets a fresh makeover on her forthcoming all-acoustic album Close-Up Volume 1: Love Songs, released February 8 through her own label Amanuensis Productions. Benefitting from Suzanne’s changed voice – a little less airy, lower and more empathic – this new version, produced by Joe Blaney (Shawn Colvin, Lauryn Hill), seems to give a new and wiser perspective to the lyrics and bodes very well for the album, which includes reworkings of ‘Marlene On The Wall’ and ‘Small Blue Thing’, and the other three volumes to follow over the next two years.

FREE MP3: Suzanne Vega, ‘Gypsy’ [acoustic, via Stereogum]

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