Suzanne Vega -- Folkie Behind `Luka' Charts A New Course

Suzanne Vega created one of the most haunting hit songs ever with ``Luka,'' a stark portrayal of child abuse told from a young boy's point of view. ``They only hit until you cry,'' goes part of the heart-wrenching lyric, ``and after that you don't ask why.''

The brilliant, unforgettable tune went to No. 3 on the pop charts in the summer of 1987 and, along with Tracy Chapman's equally moving ``Fast Car,'' heralded a rebirth of folk music.

But Vega, who plays at 8 tonight at the Paramount, largely abandoned folk with ``Days of Open Hand,'' the album that followed ``Solitude Standing,'' the 3 million-seller that contained ``Luka'' and other equally dark, brooding folk songs.

The new album is mostly pop tunes and ballads and is more personal and positive than ``Solitude Standing.'' A couple of the tunes make apparent references to a startling incident in Vega's life: meeting her real father, whose existence she was not even aware of until her late teens.

The reunion forced Vega to reevaluate her whole personality. In a fascinating interview in the June issue of Musician magazine, she explains that she grew up thinking she was Puerto Rican - like her adoptive father (her adoptive mother is white) - and strongly identified with her ``Hispanic roots.'' She visited Puerto Rico and hung out with Puerto Ricans and other minorities in Spanish Harlem, her New York City neighborhood. ``I had all these really weird ideas about

white people,'' she says in the Musician interview. ``So to realize that I was in fact white was obviously a big shock.''

Using money earned from the sales of ``Luka,'' she hired a detective to find her real father, who lived in California (she was born in Santa Monica). It took only two weeks for him to be found, but it was several more months before she got up the courage to meet him. Since then, the two have become close.

Although Vega's songs are often oblique, she appears to be addressing her father in ``Rusted Pipe,'' which opens with ``Now the time has come to speak.'' The song deals with strained communication - ``stagger, stumble, trip, fumble'' - and the need to express that which is ``somewhere deep within.''

In another tune, ``Men In A War,'' about the pain of loss, Vega sings, ``I know how it is when something is gone,'' and equates soldiers losing limbs in battle to the loss of her former identity. ``You know that it was, and now it is not,'' she sings, ``so you just make do with whatever you've got.''

She found that her biological

father was musical, and that his mother had played drums in a band. ``The blood things still spoke up,'' she says in the interview, ``which I find really remarkable.''

Another factor that probably contributed to the more positive tone of ``Days of Open Hand'' is Vega's relationship with Anton Sanko, her keyboardist, co-producer and live-in boyfriend. She credits him with making ``Luka'' a success. At an audition for her touring band, which she formed after the release of her debut album, ``Suzanne Vega,'' in 1985, he improvised an arrangement for the tune. She was so impressed she hired him on the spot and he now arranges all her material and is her musical director on tour.

The songs on Vega's first two albums were written before she met Sanko. The tunes on the new album came after they set up housekeeping together, and not only are there now more romantic references in her lyrics, there are also more songs in the first person. She no longer hides behind characters all the time.

Commercially, the new record has been a disappointment. It has not produced a hit single, and only got to No. 50 on the Billboard album chart. But it's a well-crafted record that represents growth for Vega and bodes well for her future career.

Vega originally wanted to be a dancer. She graduated from Manhattan's prestigious High School for the Performing Arts (made famous by ``Fame''), majoring in modern dance. But at Barnard College, she told It's Hip magazine, several of her dancing instructors advised her she ``thought too much to be a dancer.'' She switched to a theater major, joined the swim team and began trying out her folk songs at coffeehouses.

Vega became the darling of the ``new folk'' movement in New York in the late 1970s, becoming a longtime regular at the legendary folk club, Folk City. Her success there led to her contract with A&M Records.

The show will be opened by Brian Kennedy, a new singer-songwriter, and his band.