While casting around the murkier waters of youtube for 80s tracks, I received a message from the numbskulls that simply said: “Knight Moves”.

I remembered this was a song from Suzanne Vega’s eponymous debut album, and something told me it would be worth sharing. I figured there would be little chance of finding a 1985 album track like this, but I was happy to be proved wrong by this clip of Suzanne Vega at the Montreux Jazz festival.

You might be more familiar with “Tom’s Diner”, from second album “Solitude Standing”. Written on 18 November 1981, on its initial single release it disappointed, reaching only #58. Remixed by DNA, the song reached #2 in 1990, only kept off the top spot, tragi-comically, firstly by Partners in Kryme’s “Turtle Power”, and then by Bombalurina, with “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.

I’m not sure anything could make up for that disappointment, but “Tom’s Diner” was also used by Karlheinz Brandenburg while developing the MP3 compression algorithm, using the song in its original a cappella form to test tweaks to the algorithm, earning Vega the name “The Mother of the MP3”.