Tea And Sympathy Lyrics

Lyric discussion by japhy 

Cover art for Tea And Sympathy lyrics by Jars of Clay

The "tea" in this song refers to things said between two people who love each other. Some of the words are harsh and misunderstood, and "fall to the floor and break like china cups", whereas some of them are calmly and carefully spoken, "slowly dr[u]nk in". The waitress tries to clean up the broken words, and later offers sugar. They taste the "bitterness" of the words spoken, and the waitress offers sugar to sweeten the "tea" -- meaning they need to "sweeten" the words.

This all might sound silly, but they've put a lot of analogies into the song. The waitress represents a kind of common sense -- trying to fix the mistake of using harsh words, and trying to find better words to use. The tea represents the words being spoken, and the bag of leaves represents those not yet said (not yet mixed).