Songfacts®:

• "Tom's Diner" 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 heard 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.
• 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", Drake on a cut titled "Juice" and David Guetta on his tune "Let It Be Me."
• Giorgio Moroder covered the song for his 2015 Déjà 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."
• The German rock groups AnnenMayKantereit and Giant Rooks recorded a cover of the song in 2019 that went viral on TikTok in March 2022 as people used the singing duo's unique and expressive vocals to soundtrack videos on the platform. Their version peaked at #63 on the UK singles chart and #78 on the Hot 100.
• Vega loves DNA's remix. "I thought it was witty and humorous, but it wasn't making fun of 'Tom's Diner,'" she told Uncut magazine.
  
  Vega appreciated that the remix retained the essence of her original song while infusing it with a compelling groove. "It was still the song that I'd written, but it had this groove," she explained. "I thought, 'Wow, this is great. This has the possibility of reaching all those neighborhoods that I grew up in, without changing myself.'"
  
  She also acknowledged the irony, given her meticulous focus on lyrics: "Of course the irony of it is that I spent so much time on my lyrics - I feel that lyrics are really my gift. And in this song, what am I known for? 'Da da – da. Da–da da da-da.'"