Sunday, February 26, 2006

Tea and Sympathy


I'm thinking things have gone from bad to worse with my blog.

I'm listening to my Walkman (to be traded in for an iPod soon? Or do I have enough gadgets?)
and the song that's playing is one I want to quote from. The group is Jars of Clay, the song's title is a phrase I've never understood, also the title of today's blog.




Tea and Sympathy
by Jars of Clay

fare thee well
trading all our words for tea and sympathy
I wonder why we try for things can never be
play our heart's lament
like an unrehearsed symphony

not intent
to leave this castle full of empty rooms
left the captive in the tower never rescued
and all the victory songs
seem to playing out of tune

Cause it's not the way it has to be
don't trade our love for tea and sympathy
it's not the way it has to be

you begin
all your words fall to the floor and break like china cups
and the waitress graps the broom and tries to sweep them up
I reach for my tea..

This is not the whole song, but listening to my headphones is giving me a headache right now. What I wanted to ask the reader, if there exists such an animal, is: what the heck does this song mean??? I mean, is it full of abstractions or what? Then the part about the china cups seems concrete, but that's just a metaphor. There's not really a waitress, she's just got a cameo role in this extended simile. Or, does the action of this song take place in a diner? So the people are literally drinking tea?

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tea and sympathy are maybe things that comfort but don't really change anything or fix whatever is wrong? I don't know...the song is way full of abstractions.

6:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Harriet--I don't know anything about popular music, nor about this particular group. But I think that the person singing the song is trying to stop his/her beloved from breaking up the relationship just to get more attention for being heartbroken -- that is, he/she is saying to the beloved, "Don't do this, please. Don't toss away our love just for the sake of getting more attention and pity from others." But the beloved goes ahead anyway and breaks the china cup (their love) just to get sympathy (the waitress represents those who give sympathy). In other words, don't ruin a good, basic thing just to stir up some self-serving melodrama. At the end, the singer who is now left alone also seeks comfort for him/herself by "drinking tea." Most of this is metaphorical language, I believe. There was a 1956 movie "Tea and Sympathy" which I never saw, but maybe some of this song is alluding to details of that movie? Maybe knowing the movie would help understand the song.

Of course I could be entirely wrong about everything I just said!

Gwen

6:34 AM  
Blogger HL said...

Hey Amy and Gwen, thanks for your input. I think you both have more of a clue than I do. Like you say, Amy, lots of abstractions.

I'm interested now in whether songs or poetry full of abstractions have any value, thus my next blog entry.

3:27 PM  

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