Tom's Diner

April 1, 1987

Tom 's Diner [ ˌ tɑ ː mzdaɪnɚ ] is an a cappella song of American singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega. The song was written in 1981 and published in 1987 in Vegas album Solitude Standing. Once again it became known the song after Vegas singing of the British group DNA Disciples was used for a remix.

Content

The song describes in the form of a lyric ego the short stay of a person in a coffee shop, namely Tom 's Restaurant in New York City. The person drinks a cup of coffee, reading the newspaper and watching a woman who also enters the café. It is raining outside. It is the bells of a nearby cathedral to hear what reminds the narrator at the previous encounter with an unnamed person. At the end of the narrative person leaves the cafe to catch a train.

Recording

Originally Vega covered the song as a simple composition with piano accompaniment. However, since they can not play piano, she decided for the unusual path of a cappella recording. The actual recording became correspondingly very simple: It's just Vegas to hear singing, which was only provided with a reverb effect. The song was not released as a single from the album Solitude Standing, but the song that follows on the album to Tom 's Diner Luka - a commercially quite successful title.

Cover versions

DNA Remix

1990 produced two producers under the pseudonym DNA ( later DNA Disciples ) in 1990 a remix of Tom 's Diner by laying a rhythm of Soul II Soul under Vegas Voice and the end of the song so altered that the Vega really only in the fadeout sung " dep dep De Dö " was used as a refrain. The remix was created without the knowledge or permission of Suzanne Vega. DNA drove the remix in small numbers of clubs. Vegas record label A & M Records learned of the publication and decided to buy the single and self-publish rather than to take legal action against the production team DNA. Suzanne Vega even liked the remix and was probably responsible for ensuring that DNA was not judicially prosecuted. The " DNA Remix" was much more successful than the original Vegas and reached in Germany, Austria and Switzerland No. 1 on the singles charts. In the UK and in the USA, the remix was also placed in the top ten.

After One

The German Dance Project After One brought with Tom 's Diner Rap out a cover version, in 1990 the top 20 in the German Single Charts.

More versions

Above all, the success of DNA Remix attracted a number of other interpretations according to the Vega 1991, the album was released on Tom's album. These included versions of Billy Bragg and REM or also by Peter Behrens, the former drummer of Trio.

Meanwhile, the song is interpreted sometimes in jazz genre; here are about the instrumental versions of Ivo Perelman ( with Guilherme Franco on berimbau, 1991), Larry Schneider or Renaud Garcia-Fons/Gérard Marais mentioned.

" The mother of MP3"

The inventor of the audio data compression technology MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg told in an interview that he was just fine tune the compression algorithm, when he heard the a cappella version of Tom 's Diner on the radio. He was thrilled by the recording and initially convinced that one can not compress without audible loss of the characteristics of the voice of Suzanne Vega. Since accompanying instruments were missing, and the psycho-acoustic masking was scarce. Brandenburg chose the song in the sequence, to test its audio data compression methods and, where appropriate, to revise the algorithms. So it is obvious to say that MP3 is a file format to compress especially Tom 's Diner possible audiophile. Under sound engineers Tom 's Diner therefore it is also called "the mother of MP3".

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