Ode to John Mayer

I love John Mayer. 

He is an amazing musician, and although he's a mess of a person (who isn't??), he writes the most honest lyrics and sings with vulnerability.

We have grown together John and I

from 2002-2003 when he was in the jukebox at one of my 1st jobs
she's always buzzing just like neon, neon

and I was graduating

i want to run through the halls of my high school

i want to scream at the top of my lungs

i just found out there's no such thing as a real world

just a lie you have to rise above

To the sweet afternoon when I lie under a tree at a college campus, dealing with the change of life and who I was becoming

I'm a new man

I wear a new cologne and you wouldn't know me if your eyes were closed

and my impending first heartbreak

'all we need is love' is a lie 'cause we had love and we still said goodbye

now we're tired, battled fighters...

i called because i just need to feel you on the line

don't hang up this time

i know it's me who called it over but...

Skip a few years ahead when I was cynical, bitter, and hurt by promises of an on-again, off-again fool
i'll beg my way in to your garden
then i'll break my way out when it rains
just to get back to the place where i started
so i can want you back all over again (i don't really understand)...
i don't trust myself with loving you

my dear we're slow dancing in a burning room 

(JM's best song to date in my opinion)

i'm in repair...i'm not together but i'm getting there

Unfortunately, John Mayer's midlife crisis (Stop This Train still makes me cry every time) took him off the deep end and while Battle Studies was still great, his writing became superficial and easy.

example chorus:
line 1
repeat line 1
repeat line 1
repeat line 1

While I recognize the difficulty of the writing style and connecting the lyrics of almost every song, the only true emotional gem was Edge of Desire, currently on my Top 25 Most Played on my ipod. (I won't quote you anything, just go listen now...seriously, now).

Then John Mayer had a series of silences and surgeries, sobering up (Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey) and apologies to make. And thankfully he's back! Just as my ipod is filling with The Civil Wars, Iron & Wine, Bon Iver, and Mumford and Sons, John and I are on the same page again!

For the upbeat lovers you have his 2nd single "Queen of California" and JM Trio-esque "Something Like Olivia". For the storytellers "Walt grace's Submarine Test" (a song that reminds me of Pixar's Up). For the romantics "Love is a Verb" and "A Face to Call Home"
little by little
inch by inch
we've built a yard with a garden in the middle of it
it ain't much but it's a start...


He takes melodic risks (Age of Worry), writing risks (Walt Grace...), genre risks (country/folk) while still staying true to his John Mayer goodness that we know and love.

So I leave you with this lyric that has haunted me since I first heard it on Tuesday morning...
maybe it's all a dream i'm living at 17
and i don't have tattoos...
when you gonna wise up boy?

May we all get around to living. And now you have some new additions to your soundtrack!