The Search for Everything

I’m often told by my friends that I’m obsessed with a new musician monthly, and I’m ready to agree that, that is true. This month I’ve been obsessed over John Mayer, I’ve listened to his ‘This is John Mayer’ playlist and all his albums as well as watching his Beats 1 and complex news interviews and his IGTV show ‘Current Mood’. So I will call myself a self-proclaimed encyclopaedia of John Mayer. While working my way through his entire discography I realised how amazing his recent album ‘The Search for Everything’, really is. Especially after I heard it was initially released in two waves, which I thought was an interesting choice.

Mayer’s album is a journey of not only him changing as a person but is a compilation of love songs in all honesty. The album starts with one of my favourite songs on the album ‘Still Feel Like Your Man’. Mayer sings this upbeat yet slightly melancholic song, as he croons about how he still feels like her man, and keeps her shampoo in the shower just in case she comes back. And this love theme is prominent through half the songs such as ‘Love on the Weekend’, ‘Rosie’. however these love songs tell the story of John getting over this girl. He starts of still feeling like her man, then speaks about how ‘Moving On and Getting Over’ aren’t the same thing, then speaks about thinking of the girl leaving (on ‘Never on the Day You Leave’) and remembering things about her, but its more of a song of acceptance. Finally he lets her go on ‘You’re Gonna Live Forever in me’.

On the other half of the songs, we hear Mayer’s journey of self discovery, with ‘Helpless’ where he wonders if he is even capable of change or getting better and he explores whether this is something that will last forever or he can wash away, in, ‘In the Blood’. He plainly states in ‘Changing’ that he isn’t done changing.

The songs ‘Emoji of a Wave’ and ‘Roll it on home’ are two that I fail to place in one of the two categories wholly. Emoji of a wave seems as though it’s directed at this unnamed girl but also makes it seem as though Mayer at once underwent these same feelings or time. In ‘Roll it on Home’ he sings about no one wanting to take him home and not being loved right, which falls into the motif of love in the album but also self discovery , as he realises “tomorrow’s another chance”.

The song I left for last was ‘Theme from “The Search for Everything”‘. This is a short instrumental interlude, that is directly in the middle of the album, just before the conclusive songs with the theme of change and love. It has a ‘Toy Story-esque’ feel to it, and is a beautiful break from Mayer’s confessions during the first half of the album.

This month I dedicated to Mayer, was not wasted I hope my February obsession is just as talented in terms of song-writing and guitar.

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