Day 63: ‘Tom’s Diner’ by Suzanne Vega

This is one of only a handful of American songs which features in this list. I’ve never cottoned on to most US bands. As you’ve probably gathered, my own tastes have always been more in the British scene, and also the great stuff that was coming out of Germany in the 1980s.

This is one of the exceptions to the rule.

I don’t know much about Suzanne Vega. I gather that she was part of the Greenwich Village crowd, and was a poet before she became a singer. This record is a marvellously simple example of spoken/sung poetry. If Lou Reed had come up with anything as great as this in his twilight years, the world would be a far better place.