Songs Lyrics and YT- Youtube Music Videos

Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner

Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Solitude Standing
Released: 1987

Tom's Diner Lyrics

I am sitting
In the morning
At the diner
On the corner

I am waiting
At the counter
For the man
To pour the coffee

And he fills it
Only halfway
And before
I even argue

He is looking
Out the window
At somebody
Coming in

"It is always
Nice to see you"
Says the man
Behind the counter

To the woman
Who has come in
She is shaking
Her umbrella

And I look
The other way
As they are kissing
Their hellos

I'm pretending
Not to see them
And Instead
I pour the milk

I open
Up the paper
There's a story
Of an actor

Who had died
While he was drinking
He was no one
I had heard of

And I'm turning
To the horoscope
And looking
For the funnies

When I'm feeling
Someone watching me
And so
I raise my head

There's a woman
On the outside
Looking inside
Does she see me?

No she does not
Really see me
Cause she sees
Her own reflection

And I'm trying
Not to notice
That she's hitching
Up her skirt

And while she's
Straightening her stockings
Her hair
Is getting wet

Oh, this rain
It will continue
Through the morning
As I'm listening

To the bells
Of the cathedral
I am thinking
Of your voice

And of the midnight picnic
Once upon a time
Before the rain began

I finish up my coffee
It's time to catch the train

Writer/s: VEGA, SUZANNE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Tom's Diner

This is an a cappella song that became a hit in 1990 when the British production duo DNA added a beat and released the remix as a bootleg. The contrast between Vega's subtle vocal and the driving dance rhythm meshed unexpectedly well. Of course, DNA didn't ask Vega's permission, and when Suzanne first heart it, she said she wasn't sure whether she should sue them or congratulate them. She decided against litigation and her record company, A&M, proving that sometimes there's more to be gained without filing a lawsuit, officially released the remix along with other bootleg recordings that had emerged, including one with a German disco flavor and another with a reggae beat.

Suzanne Vega wrote this song while eating breakfast at Tom's Restaurant on the corner of Broadway and 112th Street in New York City. Tom's has another famous place in pop culture as well: it was Jerry Seinfeld's hangout in his hit sitcom Seinfeld. On the show, where it was called "Monk's Cafe," the "Tom's" was cropped out so the exterior sign just said "Restaurant," and the interior shots were done with TV magic on a sound stage. Check out a photo of Tom's Diner.

The song has been sampled many times by other artists, including Tupac for his track "Dopefiend's Diner," Aaliyah on her single "Hot Like Fire" and Drake on a cut titled "Juice."

Giorgio Moroder covered the song for his 2015 DéjÁ  Vu album. His version features vocals by Britney Spears. "The song doesn't have a big range, and I added a bridge and some instrumental stuff," the EDM godfather told Billboard magazine. "Britney sounds so good, you would hardly recognize her."

When German engineers were developing the MP3 file format, they used this song to test their creation, checking for loss of fidelity. They picked an a cappella tune because they were particularly concerned about degrading the human voice.

Fall Out Boy sampled this song and used various elements from it on their 2014 hit "Centuries."

Suzanne Vega - Luka

Suzanne Vega - Luka Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Solitude Standing
Released: 1987

Luka Lyrics

[Chorus:]
My name is Luka
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes I think you've seen me before
If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight
Just don't ask me what it was [Repeat x 3]

I think it's because I'm clumsy
I try not to talk too loud
Maybe it's because I'm crazy
I try not to act too proud
They only hit until you cry
And after that you don't ask why
You just don't argue anymore [Repeat x 3]

Yes I think I'm okay
I walked into the door again
Well, if you ask that's what I'll say
And it's not your business anyway
I guess I'd like to be alone
With nothing broken, nothing thrown
Just don't ask me how I am [Repeat x 3]

[Chorus]

I think it's because I'm clumsy
I try not to talk too loud
Maybe it's because I'm crazy
I try not to act too proud
They only hit until you cry
And after that you don't ask why
You just don't argue anymore [Repeat x 3]

Writer/s: VEGA, SUZANNE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Luka

This song is about child abuse. It tells the story of a frightened boy who is forbidden to talk about what he's going through.

On a 1987 Swedish television special, Vega said: "A few years ago, I used to see this group of children playing in from 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."

Speaking with SongTalk magazine, Vega explained that she started with the title for this song. Describing how she wrote it, she said: "It takes months of kind of fingering it in my mind, while I'm walking around or doing something else, it's just like a problem that my mind goes back to. It wiggles. It's like you're trying to get the right angle, and once the angle comes, I can write the song in two hours. Like 'Luka' took two hours. It took months of thinking about it and lining up the shot, in a sense. Like if you're playing pool and you want to clear the table, you line it all up, and then you just hit it and everything clears. It's very satisfying, but it takes months of preparation.

I wasn't sure what the character would say. I knew what the character's problem was, but I didn't know how to get the listener involved. I wanted it to be from the point of view of a person who is abused. Now the problem that that person has is that they can't say it. So how do you get the problem out if you can't say it? How do you involve the listener? Well, you introduce yourself: 'My name is Luka.' And 'I live on the second floor, I live upstairs from you,' and so therefore you're engaging the listener. 'I think you've seen me before,' so you start to listen. You're drawing the listener into this world with very simple, basic information. And it then proceeds to state the problem without ever saying what the problem is. That was my problem as a songwriter: How do I give this information without ever giving it?

It's easy to point a finger. It's easy to say, 'Child abuse must stop' and everybody knows this."

Vega wrote this song about three years before it was released on her second album. It was written before her debut album, but Vega said it "needed some time for it to settle into the bag of songs."

There is a great deal of lyrical dissonance in this song, as the stark story of child abuse contrasts with the catchy melody. Vega explained to SongTalk: "Because I was aiming at such a complex subject, I was aiming for the simplest line to get there. Simple melodies, happy chords. I felt I had to make it accessible because it was such a dark subject. So I went all out. But I also tried to write in the language of a child. So that's probably why it worked, because it is so accessible."

The video was directed by Michael Patterson and his wife Candace Reckinger, and it used an experimental animation technique that they popularized in the video for a-ha's "Take On Me."

Suzanne Vega - Marlene On The Wall

Suzanne Vega - Marlene On The Wall Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Suzanne Vega
Released: 1985

Marlene On The Wall Lyrics

Even if I am in love with you
All this to say, what's it to you?
Observe the blood, the rose tattoo
Of the fingerprints on me from you

Other evidence has shown
That you and I are still alone
We skirt around the danger zone
And don't talk about it later

Marlene watches from the wall
Her mocking smile says it all
As the records the rise and fall
Of every soldier passing

But the only soldier now is me
I'm fighting things I cannot see
I think it's called my destiny
That I am changing

Marlene On The Wall

I walk to your house in the afternoon
By the butcher shot with the sawdust strewn
"Don't give away the goods too soon"
Is what she might have told me

Marlene watches from the wall
Her mocking smile says it all
As the records the rise and fall
Of every man who's been here

But the only one here now is me
I'm fighting things I cannot see
I think it's called my destiny
That I am changing

Marlene on the wall

Writer/s: VEGA, SUZANNE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Marlene On The Wall

Vega wrote this about coping with loneliness; she finds comfort by looking up to a poster of Marlene Dietrich on the wall. Vega really did have a poster of Dietrich on her wall. She explained in SongTalk magazine: "That was a truthful song. The lines came out of my life. But you want to be careful, too, because you don't want to get into 'Oh, my boyfriend left me...' I have a problem with specifically confessional songwriting. I think you have to craft it in some way. I don't think you can come on stage and blurt out your innermost feelings. My niece can blurt out her innermost feelings. She's four years old. I wouldn't want to pay $25 to go see her do that. You need to put it in a form. Although it is truthful, you have to give it some respect, or a certain kind of dignity, by putting it into a kind of form. Because these people are not my friends. They're paying to see a show, some form of entertainment. So I'm not gonna sit there and talk to them like Ronee Blakely in Nashville."

Marlene Dietrich was a German actress who became an international film star in the 1930's. During World War II, she put her movie career on hold in order to entertain US troops, a move that won her the Medal of Freedom, the highest military award a civilian can receive. Dietrich was 90 years old when she died in 1992.

Vega told SongTalk that this song always seemed "A little wide of mark, somehow." Said Vega: "It's accessible and people do like it, but for me, personally, inside myself, I feel I had something in mind, and I kind of did it, it was stylish, it was interesting, but I didn't feel it was quite the bulls-eye that some of the others were. The idea of using a poster as a reference point is a very pop idea. It's a song about Marlene Dietrich. You kind of get that from it, or it's a song about a relationship."

This was Vega's first single. It did well in the UK, but didn't get noticed in America. Vega, who is from New York, found success in the US 2 years later with her album Solitude Standing, which contained the hit song, "Luka."