Tom's Diner - A Song Analysis
“Tom’s Diner”, a song with the length of 4:29 minutes sung by the band “AnnenMayKantereit” as well as the band “Giant Rocks” is a single which was published in 2019. It describes the friendship between a coffee shop worker and a customer observed by a third party. It also explores the effect this observation has on the lyrical self.The song starts with only the beat, sung acapella, as the singers begin to snip. At 0:20, a guitar lays soft chords over the voices until finally, at 0:30, the instrumental part starts.
The first strophe is about the lyrical I, in this case a customer who sits early in the morning in a diner – presumably Tom’s –, waiting for their coffee to be prepared. The second strophe follows the first from the same perspective. The lyrical I notices that the person making their coffee fills the cup only halfway, too distracted by a person coming in that they already saw through the window. The lyrical self does not have time to intervene or anything of that sorts.
Strophe two and three are separated by an instrumental part. Strophe three exists purely out of the interaction between the newcomer and the man behind the counter, observed by the lyrical I. The man tells the woman that it were always nice to see her, while she shakes her umbrella clear of any rain.
Strophe three and four are not separated in any way, but the music slows down significantly, only allowing the vocals with a few background chords. The lyrical self looks away as the friends greet each other, focusing on putting the milk in the coffee and ignoring every interaction between the people next to them. The beat picks up again.
What follows in the rest of the song is a continuous repetition of the quote that the man said to the woman combined with a relaxed supporting melody. The only disruption of this would be the erroneous ending from 3:19 to 3:35.
The first thing the listener remarks about the song is that you are slowly lowered into the song through the build-up of layering the music, the vocals and the beat experience (cf. 0:00-0:30). Then, regarding the first two strophes, you will soon notice, that the lines are short, simple and don’t follow any rhyming scheme (cf. l. 1-8). It fits the description of the setting and thus the tone very well: an early, rainy morning with the lyrical I not fully awake yet.
Following strophe two, the instrumental part (1:00-1:29) fits very well since the strophes two and three vary textually. Especially the calmer part of the interlude from 1:10 to 1:29 makes room for what is coming next.
Although the perspective doesn’t change in strophe three, the subject changes: the interaction and thus the relationship between “the man behind the counter” and the “woman who has come in” (l. 10f.) is now in the focus. The first thing the man says to the woman is not “hello”, which comes afterwards, it is “It is always nice to see you” (l. 9). They are familiar, not exactly in a “strangers who nod to each other on the train” way but in a “regular customer who is so awfully nice to me every time and with whom I exchanged a few words” way. This strophe also features the only figure of speech: A personification in l. 14 “kissing their hellos”. It means that they are presumably kissing each other on the cheek, showing their friendship to be quite close and prompting the lyrical I to turn away. Furthermore, the lyrical I feels like they’re intruding some intimate interaction, busying themselves with their cup of coffee. The emotions of the lyrical I, the simulteneous fascination and embarrassment, is supported by the slow chords the music provides (cf. 1:45-2:06). The atmosphere feels a little spaced-out or lost in thought. Finally the lyrical I shakes themselves out of their stun as the beat picks up in 2:07.
What follows is the constant steam of the first sentence the man said to the woman, accompanied by the full instrumental range. It seems like this phrase in particular will not leave the mind of the lyrical self, stuck there on repeat. They are mulling it over until the music fades out and a break starts in. Now, this could be interpreted as a time skip. It could symbolise that the lyrical I has finished and gone off with their day and just didn't think further about the man and the woman. But then, the music starts again after 16 seconds with the words: “Oh it is always nice to see you” (l. 23), meaning, the lyrical self remembers the line later on.
In conclusion, the song Tom’s Diner addresses a very tiny human exchange that did not even include the observer, yet leaves them thinking about it all day. The songs puts emphasis on how human it is to savour the little moments that will impact us. For that, it utilises up and down phases in the music as well as breaks. Personally, I find the song very compelling due to the way it stages the scene and the impact it has on the lyrical self