Susan Cagle, Subway Recordings
you know those tunes you can’t get out of your head? it’s like that.
2007-08-30
By Kevin Gibbs

Her record company bio makes no mention of her age but let’s step out on a limb: singer/song writer, Susan Cagle was probably not even born when Rupert Holmes answered a personal ad in his song, “The Escape” with the now infamous words, “Yes, I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain!”  Yet somehow, Cagle’s question, “Do you like Shakespeare?” from a song on her new full-length release evokes the same kind of romantic, matchmaker, we-just-met, curiosity that made Holmes’ song so great and just a part of the reason why Cagle’s hook-filled, The Subway Recordings, is so appealing. 

Like Holmes, Cagle has no problems wearing her heart on her sleeve as she does on the idealistic “Dream” and again on “Be Here” where she sings,

“Open your ears / what do you hear? / Do you hear the sound of someone in despair? / Do you hear me? / Then be here, now, with me.”

A testament to sadness and loneliness that is punctuated by need – the kind that everyone feels at least once in their lives but oftentimes never articulates. Cagle shares that difficult moment without fear and fortunately, she does so for the rest of us who do not share her unique talent for candidness.  Then she reassures us all with the almost religious yet certainly spiritual, “Ain’t It Good To Know” where she cries:

“From the dark clouds of your sorrow come the bright skies of tomorrow And as the clouds begin to clear you know someone loves you dear… Ain’t it good to know you got somebody who sees you when no one else knows you’re here?”

And ain’t it good for us to know that the lady with lots of questions also has some answers.

But before you begin to think this record is a slew of pleasing odes to how cruel life is or worst yet, that Cagle has no sense of humor she promptly recovers with the sarcastic, “(Isn’t It True That) Happiness Is Overrated” – a song that helps to explain away the irritated human in all of us.  In fact, Cagle seems to turn every song into a sing-along.  Especially, her “Transitional” about a friend, turned lover, turned bad idea that would make any daytime soap opera writer proud.

Her sense of humor must have come in handy while she entertained subway riders in New York City’s famous transit system.  It was there that she was “discovered” by a record company executive and given a recording contract – Quite the Hollywood ending for the young artist considering she continues to play the Union Square, Grand Central Station, and Times Square venues beneath the city.  What a great idea to have her first major release recorded there (yes, those are actual platform announcements and trains rolling by in the background of this live recording). 

She has said of that experience:
 
"It was just so amazing. Sometimes I would play late at night where people would be grouped together waiting for trains going in different directions on the same platform and I would get a huge crowd. And you could feel it…I felt like I was singing just for them. I felt like I was able to touch them in some way through my music."
 
It is this “new” love, innocent, cheerful-in-spite-of-this-pain, humorous-serious, environment that makes her full-length release, The Subway Recordings, such a joy to listen to. There’s remarkably only one truly disappointing part of her short ten song set: Just after finishing her tune “Ask Me,” Cagle tells the crowd “The band’s gonna take a little break and we’ll be right back.”  She never returns.

Kevin "Chico" Gibbs is a veteran music executive and critic. He covers classic music and throwback culture for EbonyJet.com

Susan Cagle - The Subway Recordings 

Photos Courtesy Lefthook Entertainment