Creativity Quote by Suzanne Vega

There is a sly provocation in Vega calling her own writing "not terribly civilized". Coming from an artist often filed under "literate singer-songwriter", the line resists the flattering box. "Civilized" is code for polite, finished, socially acceptable: lyrics that behave, narratives that resolve, feelings that stay within their designated lanes. Vega’s admission punctures that expectation and repositions her craft as something closer to excavation than decoration.

The phrasing matters. "A lot" suggests a sustained practice, not a one-off shock tactic; "not terribly" is the wry hedge of someone who knows exactly how far she’s pushing without needing to grandstand. It’s a musician’s way of saying: the work is built from appetite, anger, obsession, shame, stray cruelty, bodily detail - the raw material polite culture trains us to edit out. And because she says "writing" rather than "songs", she nudges us toward process: pages where the first impulse is allowed to be messy, private, even feral, before it’s shaped into performance.

Contextually, Vega emerged as a female voice in scenes that rewarded "taste" and punished overt aggression. Declaring her work uncivilized is a small act of refusal: she won’t be domesticated into the role of the soothing narrator. It’s also a reminder that art’s job isn’t to prove the artist is well-mannered; it’s to make something honest enough to be slightly dangerous.