Tom's Diner
| Tom's Diner | |
|---|---|
| Suzanne Vega | |
| publication | April 1, 1987 |
| length | 2:09 |
| Genre (s) | Pop song |
| Author (s) | Suzanne Vega |
| album | Solitude standing |
| Cover version | |
| DNA & Suzanne Vega (Remix) | |
Tom's Diner [ ˌtɑːmzdaɪnɚ ] is an a cappella - song of American singer and songwriter Suzanne Vega . The song was written in 1981 and released on Vegas album Solitude Standing in 1987 .
The song became known worldwide in 1990 when Vegas vocals were used for a remix by the British dance project DNA . In this version, Tom's Diner became the first all-German number 1 hit on October 3, 1990 .
content
In the form of a lyrical self, the song describes a person's brief stay in a café, namely Tom's Restaurant in New York City . The narrator has a coffee, reads the newspaper and watches a woman who also enters the café. The narrator is thinking of a second person who is not described in detail, especially her voice. The bad weather outside reminds the narrator of the midnight picnic "before the rain started", which was probably some time ago.
While she hears the bells of a cathedral, she finishes her coffee. After that, she has to set off so as not to miss the train.
admission
Vega originally thought of the song as a simple composition with piano accompaniment . However, since she cannot play the piano, she decided to take the unusual route of an a cappella recording. The actual recording turned out to be very simple: You can only hear Vegas vocals, which were only given a reverb effect. The song was not released as a single from the album Solitude Standing , but the song that follows Tom's Diner on the album : Luka - a commercially quite successful track.
Cover versions
DNA remix
In 1990, two producers created a remix of Tom's Diner under the pseudonym DNA by laying the beat of Keep on Movin 'by the band Soul II Soul under Vegas vocals and changing the course of the song so that the song that Vega actually only sang in fadeout Dep De Dö Dep ”was used as the refrain. The remix was made without the knowledge and permission of Suzanne Vega. DNA distributed the remix in small numbers to clubs. Vegas record company A&M Records found out about the release and decided to buy the single and self-release it instead of taking legal action against the production team DNA. The remix was commercially more successful than the Vegas original and reached number 1 in the singles charts in Germany , Austria and Switzerland . In Great Britain and the USA the remix was also able to place in the top ten.
After one
The German dance project After One brought out a cover version of Tom's Diner Rap , which reached the top 20 of the German single charts in 1990.
Other versions
Above all, the success of the DNA remix led to a whole series of other interpretations, which Vega released in 1991 on the album Tom's Album . This included versions by Billy Bragg and REM or by Peter Behrens , the former drummer of Trio .
In the meantime, the song is also occasionally interpreted in the jazz genre ; Examples include the instrumental versions by Ivo Perelman (with Guilherme Franco at Berimbau , 1991), Larry Schneider or Renaud Garcia-Fons / Gérard Marais .
Disco veteran Giorgio Moroder also produced a version of Tom's Diner sung by Britney Spears as part of his 2015 album Déjà Vu .
The rapper Fard used the main theme of Tom's Diner in his piece Braungebrannt & Hakennase on the 2015 Mezzanine EP .
In June 2019 the band AnnenMayKantereit released a cover version of the song, which was produced together with Giant Rooks and captured in a music video.
Historical meaning
First all-German number 1
Tom's Diner in the DNA-Remix was number 1 in the German single charts for seven weeks in autumn 1990 . On September 10, 1990, the title replaced Matthias Reims Schlager Verdammt, ich liebe 'Dich , one of the most successful German-language songs, after 16 weeks at the top. With the accession of the five new federal states of the former GDR to the scope of the Basic Law of the FRG on October 3, 1990, the remix automatically became the first number 1 hit of the unified Germany. The title was only replaced on October 29, 1990 by the group Londonbeat and their title I've Been Thinking About You from number 1.
"The mother of MP3"
The inventor of the MP3 audio data compression method , Karlheinz Brandenburg , learned in a hi-fi magazine during the development phase that Tom's Diner was being used to test high-quality music systems. He was enthusiastic about the recording and initially convinced that the characteristics of Suzanne Vega's voice could not be compressed without audible loss. Since there were no accompanying instruments, there was hardly any psychoacoustic masking. Brandenburg then chose the song to test its audio data compression method and, if necessary, to revise the algorithms .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ DNA feat. Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" sample of Soul II Soul feat. Caron Wheeler's "Keep on Movin '" (Club Mix) , whosampled.com, accessed August 4, 2017
- ↑ giorgiomoroder.com: Album: Déjà Vu , track list of the album Déjà Vu on giorgiomoroder.com.
- ↑ Tanned & Hooked Nose by Fard , whosampled.com, accessed July 6, 2018
- ↑ [1] , Musikblog.de, accessed on July 23, 2019
- ↑ Number 1 hits Germany: Number 1 hits 1990 on: Chartsurfer.de ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Norbert Lossau: Innovations: How Suzanne Vega got MP3 up and running . In: THE WORLD . October 16, 2015 ( welt.de [accessed December 20, 2017]).
