Luka - Suzanne Vega (1987) 10/12/23

TThere's no getting around it. Today's Great Song of 1987 is about child abuse.

Not only that, but "Luka" by Suzanne Vega was about a real boy who lived in her building.

To be fair, Suzanne really had no idea if Luka was an abused child, but she noticed that he was "different" from the rest of the kids on the block, and her imagination took over.

She thought a song about a child too frightened for tell anyone about being abused would call attention to a mostly hidden problem in America, but struggled with how to "frame" the song in such a way that people would LISTEN to it...and not turn it off.

After a while, she decided that if the song sounded relatively upbeat, and wrote it in the words of a child, it might soften the topic for mass appeal...but even at that point, she figured it would just end up as an album cut on her next release: "Solitude Standing."

Her manager disagreed--quite vehemently, in fact. He told Suzanne that "Luka" was important--the the type of issue-related song that could change the world for the better, and that it should be released as a single.

Suzanne thought he was nuts and said so, but in the end, she told him, "Go ahead, knock yourself out."

So the song was released, and, to Suzanne's surprise, it charted not just in the US, but in 13 other countries, including Sweden (#2), South Africa (#3), and Canada (#5). Here at home, it reached #3 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary Chart. . "Luka" became a Great (and Important) Song of 1987, that unfortunately is still relevent today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZt7J0iaUD0

Tomorrow: Foreigner says...