Nathaniel Clark – A&E Editor

nuc5002@psu.edu

Photo Credit: Brian Rose / A&M Records

These past few weeks have been some of the most peculiar weather patterns I have ever seen on Behrend’s campus. We go from embracing 60 degrees with shorts and t-shirts to warding off wind and rain with thick coats, mittens, and scarves. Even with these shifts, the rain and gray skies always return. 

As someone may expect, this lack of sunlight mixes perfectly with the cold air to form one thing: seasonal depression. While I know a majority of people feel the effects of seasonal depression closer to the holidays, I feel like it always starts for me on November 1. Or maybe that’s just me being naive as I do not want to accept that I could have bought a Christmas tree at Walmart more than a week before Halloween. 

Nonetheless, as seasonal depression takes over my body, I find myself pouring my emotions out usually through listening to music. There is something so cathartic about listening to others retell their stories of pain and loss. If you are wondering what I have been listening to during this period, make sure to check out the Beacon Beats on page 8. On that playlist, there are a ton of tracks that I feel ooze the melancholia of the season, but one stands above the rest: “Tom’s Diner.”

For the layman, “Tom’s Diner” is the opening track off American singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega’s 1987 second studio album “Solitude Standing.” While this album was popular, “Tom’s Diner” did not reach its peak of popularity until 1992 when British dance duo DNA remixed the song. While this version is likely the one you have heard of, I find it to be the incorrect manner of listening to Suzanne’s creation.

“Tom’s Diner” is singular in its delivery compared to the rest of “Solitude Standing.” The only sounds coming from the track are Suzanne’s vocals. While most people call this a cappella, I feel like the song comes off more as a passage of spoken word. 

The lyrics feel twisting and obtuse. While we are following the perspective of a character, the elements she witnesses all feel foreign and lost, as if she is entering these people’s lives for only a quick moment until disappearing. The only time we get something inherently coherent is at the track’s end as our protagonist is “thinking of your voice.” While this is likely in reference to a lost lover, the moment produces goosebumps upon one’s first listen. 

It is also important for me to mention that the titular “Tom’s Diner” is a real location. The “Tom’s Diner” of the song is Tom’s Restaurant in New York City, a mid-20th-century diner that Vega frequently visited during the early 1980s while she was attending university. In essence, our protagonist is likely Vega from this period. 

Looking out the window as heavy rain pounds onto the diner and others outside, she desires to make a connection with anybody in the restaurant but everyone seems preoccupied with their standing. Even the woman who she believed was staring at her through the window was just there to adjust her clothing, not even acknowledging our protagonist’s existence. 

In essence, it is the peculiar weightlessness that makes “Tom’s Diner” perfect for the late fall. I look out the window and find myself just staring into space, wondering if anyone has a place for me in their own lives. That is usually the seasonal depression delivering me negativity towards my perception but what if there is a truth that lies within? Whatever, I need to finish off my coffee, it is time to catch the train.