He said, "I am not fighting for you any more."
The queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before
And slowly she let him inside
He said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill
"And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill
"But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will
"Only first I am asking you why."
Down in the long narrow hall he was led
Into her rooms with her tapestries red
And she never once took the crown from her head
She asked him there to sit down
He said, "I see you now, and you are so very young
"But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won
"And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun
"And now will you tell me why?"
The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye
She said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try."
But her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry
But she closed herself up like a fan
And she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread
"It cuts me inside, and often I've bled."
He laid his hand then on top of her head
And he bowed her down to the ground
"Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel
"As you are living here alone, and you are never revealed
"But I won't march again on your battlefield."
And he took her to the window to see.
And the sun, it was gold, though the sky, it was gray
And she wanted more than she ever could say
But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away
And would not look at his face again
And he said, "I want to live as an honest man
"To get all I deserve and to give all I can
"And to love a young woman who I don't understand
"Your highness, your ways are very strange."
But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break
And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached
She took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait
She would only be a moment inside
Out in the distance her order was heard
And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word
And while the queen went on strangling in the solitude she preferred
The battle continued on
Suzanne Nadine Vega (née Peck; born July 11, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter of folk-inspired music. Vega's music career spans almost 40 years. In the mid-1980s and 1990s she released four singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the UK, "Marlene on the Wall", "Left of Center", "Luka" and "No Cheap Thrill".
"Tom's Diner", which was originally released as an a cappella recording on Vega's second studio album, Solitude Standing (1987), was remixed in 1990 as a dance track by English electronic duo DNA with Vega as featured artist, and it became a Top 10 hit in five countries. The original a cappella recording of the song was used as a test during the creation of the MP3 format. The role of her song in the development of the MP3 compression prompted Vega to be given the title of "The Mother of the MP3".
Vega has released nine studio albums to date, the most recent being 2016’s Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers.
