I recently discovered John Mayer through Pandora listening to radom (but not quite so random according to Pandora and the Music Genome Project) songs that were streaming on my Michael Buble station. I've been using Pandora extensively on my iPhone ever since I got the smart phone. Pandora is fantastic. The songs do get a bit repetitive but it lets me stumble upon great songs and artists and rediscover forgotten or already familiar ones. John Mayer's music was the latter case. I started on Pandora but quickly moved to YouTube wherein my avid and slightly obsessive consumption of his audio recordings and concert videos took place. Many hours were spent on YouTube before I made my first John Mayer CD purchase.
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| CD purchase #1 |
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| CD purchase #2 |
I never knew he was such a talented guitarist. I never knew he could sing that well live and communicate so much emotion with minimal effort. He does make some very strange faces at times, as many of the YouTube comments have pointed out (also, there are some really creative ways people comment how much they like the video: e. g. "If this song was a toothpaste, I would brush my teeth everyday for the rest of my life." huh..?). I had no idea how seriously he took on his music making and playing, and how simply 'musical' this thirty something year old dude was.
One can be a good singer, but not all singers are musical. Mayer to me seems like one hell of a gifted, musical human being who sings like he speaks, and plays the guitar like he breathes. He exudes music. Maybe it comes from being a singer-song writer. But, no, watching him sing while also hammering out crazy tunes on that guitar like his having the time of his life makes me think there's something more to it than being able to memorize songs, hit the right notes, or write good lyrics. The best way to describe it, I think, is he knows how to synthesize...
His songs deliver to my ears what they need to deliver--words that are to the point, and tunes that set the perfect enunciations--so that the songs speak to me. The songs don't beg me to lock myself into mushy reminsence, or take me on an emotional roller coaster ride. They don't carry me away up into the clouds, or make me want to dance (although sometimes I do listen to music to do exactly these things. Random dancing to pop-ish, mainstream music is fun and good excercise). This is probably why I can tolerate listening to his songs over and over again whlie I'm driving.
[Daughters]
I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls are continually changed
And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me
Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too
[Slow dancing in a burning room]
Can't seem to hold you like I want to
So I can feel you in my arms.
Nobody's gonna come and save you,
We pulled too many false alarms.
We're going down,
And you can see it too.
We're going down,
And you know that we're doomed.
My dear,
We're slow dancing in a burning room.
How does one just come up with this? I don't see any other way than it coming from experience, epecially with songs like Daughters and Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. Two of my other favorites: In Your Atmosphere, and Stop This Train. In Your Atmosphere I also like for a reason which I will explain in another post about songs that tell one's story in the context of a particular city or place (including Lee Moon Sae's Kwang Hwa Moon Yeon Ga (광화문연가)). The crazy thing is that there are probably lots of other artists and music out there that I just haven't stumbled upon yet, which is exciting, but there's also a good portion that I never will be introduced to in my lifetime, which is sad. But I'm okay with this, for now, while I'm in my John Mayer phase.
I turn to my guitar that's been in my apartment for over two years now. The only action it's gotten since moving into my current place is eviction and then relocation from my bedroom closet to my living room, on top of the filing rack to the kitchen against the wall, and finally back to the living room where it's now in a coma lying on the cold wooden floor in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure if I should be ashamed that it's been more of a storage nuisance than a musical instrument. I don't think my recent exposure to John Mayer's music should be an inspiration to my way overdue guitar playing/learning. That would be too pretentious and just plain silly. I'll pick up the guitar and let it do what it was originally set out to do, when.... eh....who knows when.
Dear John Mayer, please keep those wonderful songs coming so that I can continue to not feel guilty about putting my guitar to sleep.
~ms
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