John Mayer is changing the blues genre. The change is taking place not through his music itself - it's actually very faithful to the genre - but rather through his lyrics. Here are a few examples of songs written by Eric Clapton:
Come on in the back of the '57.
Let me show you the way, the way to heaven.
You're looking so sweet, yes you are.
I'm sure that you've got some heat.
- "Marry You"
Let's make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane.
Please don't say we'll never find a way
And tell me all my love's in vain.
- "Layla"
No matter how I try,
My heart just don't see why
I can't forget you.
If ever it should be
You want to come back to me,
You know I'd let you.
- "Got You On My Mind"
Now here are some examples from John Mayer:
You take your sweaters,
You take your time.
You might have your reasons,
But you will never have my rhyme.
I’m gonna sing my way away from blue,
I’m gonna find another you.
- "I'm Gonna Find Another You"
And if you want to know the moment
I knew that I was still alone,
I found I'd never learned your number,
I only stored it in my phone.
You'd think by now
I'd know the shape of calling home.
- "Tracing"
Had a talk with my old man.
Said, "Help me understand."
He said, "Turn 68,
You'll renegotiate.
Don't stop this train.
Don't for a minute change the place you're in.
Don't think I couldn't ever understand.
I tried my hand.
John, honestly,
We'll never stop this train."
- "Stop This Train"
Notice any difference? EC's lyrics, along with most blues lyrics in general, tend to be... simple. The purpose of blues is to let the guitar do the talking more so than the mouth. In doing so the artist is allowed an almost limitless amount of space to explore and expand every aspect of his playing style.
John Mayer brings with his astoundingly mature playing ability an ability to compose lyrics that resonate with people at a level of profundity that most bluesmen can't even approach. For example, when I listen to Eric Clapton, I regard the lyrics as "his" lyrics - they belong to the song and are ultimately irrelevant outside of that context. Without the melody playing, I have a great deal of difficulty recalling the words at all. John Mayer's lyrics, on the other hand, I take to heart. I can quote most any song without even replaying the melody in my head at all because my brain has decided, "What he says has applications beyond the song itself. There is wisdom in these words."
I honestly don't think JM goes out of his way to push the boundaries of blues, because when I listen to him speak in interviews and behind-the-scenes videos, his colloquial vernacular is exactly the same as the lyrics he writes for his music. I bought the Village Sessions EP on iTunes a few days ago and it came with a twenty minute video documenting his composition of In Repair (which, interestingly enough, he wrote entirely in one day, both lyrics and music). I watched the intermittent sit-down interviews about three times and I still haven't figured out exactly what he said. He would say things like:
Part of going into the studio without an idea is going into the studio with as many different stimuli as you can go in with, and for me as a guitar player, I really wanted to have as many different sounds as I could pull from, and maybe see what those sounds brought out of me as a composer.
and
I remember at that point thinking that this had become a really big song. Not big in terms of what it would do on the radio or how many records it would sell, but big in the sense that it's expansive, and with the kind of vastness of the song that was being created, it really did a lot for the lyrics because the song became very sweeping. It now has kind of movements in it, which my songs don't usually have, or hadn't had up until that point.
and, my personal favorite,
The lyric idea for In Repair came from... it's kind of knowledge about the way people are - that we're always either on the way down or the way up, and you never really enjoy the moment when it's all put together, because it probably never really is. Those moments where things come apart are only setting you up for that moment when you put it back together again, and you're so surprised that it's coming back together again. There's this beauty in the idea of being in repair.
I still don't get it. Maybe one day I will. Until then, I can listen and enjoy without feeling stupid about singing along.
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