Tom's Diner

This is one of Vega's bona-fide hits, and we will deal with its success and impact later. But first, to the song:

A few lines break through the string of routine occurrences, this list of  mundane commonplaces. Two are similar: "I'm pretending not to see them" and "I'm trying not to notice." In a public world, it is hard to give people privacy when they obliviously display their private acts.

The song starts simply enough. Our speaker is waiting to get served at her habitual coffee shop with her empty cup. But the counterman "fills it only halfway," and then, before she gets the chance to protest, she notices that he no longer notices her. A new stimulus has earned his response. Someone is "coming in." She shakes her umbrella, letting us know it is now raining outside.

Then we have the private-in-public act: a kiss. "I look the other way," our shy speaker says. "Instead, I pour the milk."

Trying to distract herself, she skims the newspaper briefly, but then thinks, "I'm feeling someone watching me, and so I raise my head... Does she see me?"

Now, how could she have sensed being watched? The person she thinks is watching her is outside of the building. Then she realizes the woman cannot see through the pane at all, but "sees her own reflection."

This person is also unself-conscious. She is "hitching up her skirt" and "straightening her stockings" while being, basically, on television to anyone looking out through the window, as well as any passers-by in the rain. She is blissfully aware of others' eyes on her, and is self-seeing only ("she sees her own reflection"-- and nothing else).

Again, our speaker is embarrassed at this lack of shame on another's part. Surely, this kind of garment adjustment should be done in a restroom, not on the sidewalk.

Now that these two displays are over, our speaker notices the rain itself. The tempo of the song, brisk to this point, now slows as she turns her attention toward a memory. It is triggered by cathedral bells, which could recall either a wedding or a funeral. "I am thinking of your voice," she admits, "and of the midnight picnic once upon a time before the rain began."

This is a clever innuendo. Now it is morning, this remembered assignation happened at "midnight." She is in a roofed-over restaurant, this "picnic" seems to have been consumed/consummated out of doors.

But that storybook romance was "once upon a time." And now, there is only "the rain" and no picnic weather is pending-- "This rain, it will continue."

Did the cathedral bells mean that he married another, that he died, or...? We never learn. All that we know-- all that matters-- is that he is gone.

Something snaps her out of her reverie: "I finish up my coffee and it's time to catch the train." Off she runs, into the rain and into her workday, fueled by nothing but a splash of caffeine and a shot of adrenaline. It's not even clear that she paid for her half-cup of coffee.

These words are offered by a woman painfully aware of herself and her surroundings. She is self-conscious to a high degree, concerned with who sees her, and whom she sees, and whom she sees seeing her...

...all in a world of people who seem not to care who sees what about them. Even the "actor who died while he was drinking," the one whose obituary she glanced at in the paper (Golden Age golden boy William Holden), had his personal misery splayed out in a headline.

Was she always this way? Or was it only since her heartbreak that she drew inward and was ashamed of possibly, accidentally, displaying her grief, and therefore any emotion?

And why is she so mortified at people who are clearly blind to their own appearances-- why does she care if they don't?

IMPACT:
As was mentioned, Tom's Diner was hit... in Europe. It reached as high as #16 in Ireland, but only #58 in the UK. It also charted in Sweden (#56) and Denmark (#24). It did not make the US charts.

But the song's lack of an instrumental track (although an instrumental version by Vega herself ended the album) leant it to other uses. One was the addition of such tracks by dance DJs and other musicians (including Billy Bragg and members of REM), most notably a British duo who went by DNA. Their version, which marries the lyrics to a beat by Soul II Soul, went to #2 in the UK... and #5 in the US. The DNA remix also charted in the Top 10 on the Modern Rock and R&B charts, a rare occurrence. So many remakes and remixes have been made that they were collected in one place and were enough to fill Tom's Album. (A fuller list of covers and remixes is available on the song's Wikipedia page).

The other innovation the a cappella nature of the song leant itself to was technological. This song is the first ever recorded as an MP3, a format which now dominates digital music. While the first experiment (like most) was less than optimal, the track was used to hone the technology to the degree that Vega is considered by audio engineers as "The Mother of the MP3." This accolade sits nicely alongside her designation as the first virtual-reality concert performer in Second Life; she performed this song in that set as well as "The Queen and the Soldier."

Even the diner itself remains famous-- it's the one labeled with a neon sign reading simply "RESTAURANT," seen in many a Seinfeld episode.

Next Song: Luka