This song was written in a restaurant in New York City.. A few years later, the exterior of that restaurant was shown on episodes of the hit TV series Seinfeld, although the scenes in the restaurant were filmed in Los Angeles. The photo below is of the actual restaurant.
More activities for this song are in the Lesson Plan.

Level 2/3: High Beginning / Low Intermediate

An Ordinary Morning in an Ordinary Restaurant

In the early 1980s, when Suzanne Vega was a university student in New York City, she had a favorite restaurant. The restaurant was called “Tom’s,” and it was on the corner of 112th Street and Broadway. It was not far from the university, and it was not expensive, so Suzanne went there often for coffee.

One rainy morning Suzanne sat down at the counter at Tom’s Restaurant. While she was waiting for her coffee, she took out a piece of paper and a pen. She began to write about everything she saw and heard. She wrote in the form of a poem:

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

Suzanne’s coffee came, and she continued to write. She wrote about pouring milk into her coffee, opening the newspaper, and reading her horoscope. She wrote about a woman who came into the restaurant and kissed the man behind the counter. She heard the bells of a cathedral and wrote about them, too. The bells reminded her of a picnic she and a friend had at midnight on the steps of the cathedral.

Suzanne finished her poem and finished her coffee. Then she put her poem in her pocket and hurried to class.

As she walked fast down Broadway, she suddenly thought of a melody for her poem. A short time later, she had a complete song. She called her song “Tom’s Diner.”

Suzanne thought her song needed a piano accompaniment. But Suzanne didn’t play the piano, and she didn’t know anyone who did. So she sang “Tom’s Diner” a cappella–without musical instruments.

A few years later, Suzanne recorded “Tom’s Diner” for an album, but the song was not a big hit. In 1990, when a British group recorded a remix version of the song with a dance beat, it became a worldwide hit. Then, in 2020, two German bands posted their version of the song on social media. The video went viral. 

So “Tom’s Diner” is still a popular song. It is also an important song. When engineers were developing MP3 technology, they used Suzanne Vega’s a cappella version of “Tom’s Diner” in their experiments. They played the song over and over again as they tried to compress it into a smaller size without changing the sound.”Tom’s Diner” was the very first song to become a digital audio file.

“Tom’s Diner” is about an ordinary morning in an ordinary restaurant in New York City. But it is not an ordinary song.

Tom’s Diner, story.pdf

Story: Copyright © 2024 Sandra Heyer. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.
Photo: Copyright © Rolf52 | Dreamstime.com. Reprinted with permission.