In the Thick of It : Motherhood Has Changed Singer-Songwriter Suzanne Vega’s Approach to Work--and Life

Since 1985, when Suzanne Vega’s debut album helped uncork a still-rising stream of women making strong contributions to pop-rock song craft, interviewers have been probing for insights into the workings of her purposeful artistry.

She is quite willing to oblige. But get her on the phone nowadays, and a cool, crisp explanation of how she arrived at this or that creative choice is apt to erupt suddenly in a geyser of exclamations.

“Oh! You’ve got the puppy dog! You’ve got the banana too!”

Two-year-old Ruby, the singer’s first child, has just returned from a hotel gift shop. Her new plaything puts Vega in the vanguard of American parents who will soon be seeing spots all over.

“She came back with a Dalmatian cup. I never dreamed I’d have so much Disney stuff. We were never allowed to have any of that stuff,” allows Vega, 37, the product of a bohemian upbringing in some of Manhattan’s tougher neighborhoods. “It was considered too corporate.”

Ruby rates a few puppy dogs and bananas for inspiring two of the dozen songs on “Nine Objects of Desire,” the new album that is perhaps her mom’s best.

Speaking from Portland, Ore., Vega, who plays Thursday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, said that motherhood may have made her a more spontaneous songwriter, out of sheer necessity.

“This is what life is like most of the time,” she said after her daughter had bounded in, shown the spoils of her trip to the gift shop, and commanded some moments of maternal attention. “I’ve found lately that I write in the thick of everything and don’t have time to reflect. In the old days I had time to sit at the diner and mull things over.”

With “Nine Objects,” she said, it was a case of “using the material at hand.” Such as her honeymoon in Paris with husband Mitchell Froom, noted producer of such smart-pop acts as Los Lobos, Richard Thompson, Elvis Costello and Crowded House. “Honeymoon Suite” is a ghostly waltz based on a strange nightmare he had.

Giving birth to Ruby gave rise to the album’s keynote song, “Birth-day (Love Made Real).” While pop’s annals are full of songs about motherhood, Vega’s song is a rare, close-in account of the actual act of childbirth.

With churning percussion--one of the hallmarks of an album that is full of exciting rhythms--and a wailing organ to signal the moment of arrival, Vega weaves an account that turns birth into the sacred, thrilling, intense and mysterious rite it ought to be. She does not disguise the fact that all the sacred and joyful stuff comes wrapped in intense physical pain.

Vega, who has suffered from asthma and severe allergies all her life, says her customary mental regimen for coping with pain probably gave her a basis for writing a vivid song about giving birth.

“My first response to any pain is to try and come to grips with it by describing the sensation to myself as I’m feeling it, picturing the sensation in my mind and drawing a line around it. That helps remove the pain of it.”

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Vega said those mental notes during parturition turned into written notes a month after Ruby’s birth, which in turn gave her some imagery to work with when she composed her song. Like her interviewer, Vega couldn’t remember another pop or folk song devoted to an up-close description of a birth.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard one. I don’t think I want to hear one, frankly,” she said. “I wanted to do it to see if I could do it. It’s not just about childbirth, but any creative experience. I wanted it to work on more than one level.

“We have all these songs about drug experiences or sexual experiences. Childbirth is certainly as intense. I think most people think it’s still very rude to talk about in public,” she said. “Women among themselves will tell the story over and over again, but you use all the [technical] language, like ‘centimeters’ and ‘trimesters’ and ‘epidurals.’ [In songwriting] you have to be careful what you leave in and leave out.”

In several new songs she explores Latin rhythms for the first time--something she consciously excluded in the past, even though her band liked to tinker with them.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate,” said Vega, who grew up with a Puerto Rican stepfather in neighborhoods rich with New York Latino culture. “I was going for an Anglo, straightforward, almost new wave way of writing songs. But in my teens I had a beautiful collection of Brazilian jazz records from the ‘60s.”

Now that she has allowed herself a swooning bossa nova (“Caramel”) and, in “Lolita,” a steamy takeoff from the Eric Burdon & War hit, “Spill the Wine,” Vega says: “It’s something I do well and feels pretty natural. I think it suits my voice.”

Vega’s first three albums were successful releases, especially “Solitude Standing,” highlighted by “Luka,” her hit folk-pop portrait of an abused boy. “Tom’s Diner,” an a cappella interlude from “Solitude Standing,” turned into a big dance hit in an unauthorized techno-pop version by the British duo DNA. But in 1992, Vega felt she needed a change.

“The records were too pristine, nice-sounding and clean, and very tasteful,” she said. “But they didn’t reflect my own personality as much as I would have liked. They were too ethereal.”

She hired Froom, known for bringing unorthodox sounds into traditional pop-rock contexts, after hearing his work on Richard Thompson’s album, “Rumour & Sigh.”

The resulting album, “99.9F,” was a radical departure for Vega, with hammering, industrial-style percussion on some songs. She says her worldwide sales fell to 650,000, but “Nine Objects of Desire” doesn’t back off from that sonically adventurous tack.

Vega says that she and Froom felt romantic stirrings by the time they were done working on “99.9F,” but “we stayed away from each other for six months to see if it would go away.” They had good reason, she said, with a laugh: Froom was a married man and a father.

Working on “Nine Objects” as a married couple wasn’t much different from the strictly professional relationship they began with on the previous album, Vega said.

“The working relationship is fine. It was pretty much the same experience both times. When we work together as producer and artist, it’s very clear he works for me. He takes that attitude with all the artists he works for. That makes it very easy. When we go home, he doesn’t work for me and it’s a lot of negotiation and working things out.”

One negotiation in the marriage involves where it should be based. Froom still lives in Los Angeles; Vega is a confirmed New Yorker.

“We spend a lot of time on airplanes. He likes his nook there, but eventually I think we’ll end up in New York.” These days, Froom is playing keyboards in Vega’s touring band. “It’s not his usual thing, but we’re trying to be a family as well as a band.”

Also on board is Pete Thomas, the towering drummer from Elvis Costello’s Attractions, English guitarist Steve Donnelly, and bassist Michael Visceglia, who has backed Vega on tour since the mid-1980s.

Ruby, reports Vega, is already a trouper.

“She likes the gigs, and banging on things. She’s infatuated with the drums right now. She definitely has the bug. From time to time she will light up at the dinner table, and you can see her working the gallery with all this comic timing. She’ll bang on the piano, turn her head to the side, and you can see she’s fantasizing that she’s performing.”

Mom, the performer, has a different fantasy.

“My private idea is maybe she’ll be a scientist. It seems like such a nice life. You go to the laboratory, do a few experiments, discuss your findings.”

* Suzanne Vega and Jason Falkner play Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. $26.50-$28.50. (714) 957-0600.