Pop Song 242 of 500 'Luka' Suzanne Vega 1987

Pop Song 242 of 500 'Luka' Suzanne Vega 1987

The song deals with the issue of child abuse. On a 1987 Swedish television special, Vega revealed her inspiration for Luka:

A few years ago, I used to see this group of children playing in front of my building, and there was one of them, whose name was Luka, who seemed a little bit distinctive from the other children. I always remembered his name, and I always remembered his face, and I didn't know much about him, but he just seemed set apart from these other children that I would see playing. And his character is what I based the song Luka on. In the song, the boy Luka is an abused child—in real life I don't think he was. I think he was just different.

In a Dutch video documentary by "Top 2000 à gogo" in December 2018, Vega spoke about the meaning of the song:
I wanted to write about child abuse… I had to think of how to write about a subject that no-one talks about