New Music: I Guess I Just Feel Like, John Mayer can do no wrong in 2019

John Mayer’s first song of 2019 “I Guess I Just Feel Like”

This year is setting up to be his best yet for John Mayer (Columbia Records). So far we have been treated to the news he will be touring with not just Dead and Company but also a solo headlining tour, both of which are coming to our city and we cannot say how ready we are. To experience the new John. So let me back-up in a less super fandom way. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter is known for his lyrical content, versatile yet simplistic approach that attaches to heartstrings and strums them a way you didn’t know a heart could sound.

He connects singing his truth.

Last fall Mayer debuted the song at an intimate live show in Burbank, California. He performed the raw, stripped-down version with just his acoustic guitar with some added ooohs and ahhhs to a silent and teary-eyed crowd.

The harmonies and content of the intimate song instantly married together what music is all about. Tones, sweet crying guitars, an easily remembered yet poignant chorus, and gentle melancholic lyrics. When we first visited new music from Mayer back at the end of 2018 with his single “New Light,” he was touching base on being 40 in the friend zone and just walking us down a path of a more mature JM. Reflective on the past.

On the new single “I Guess I Just Feel Like,” he’s deeper into this mindset. Dare I say we are getting the catalog of the American-40-something males’ passive-aggressive positivity ‘midlife crisis with an air of hope’ (new album name possibly? You’re welcome!)

And the future is fading and the past is on hold

But I know that I’m open and I know that I’m free

And I’ll always let hope in wherever I’ll be

While some of the lyrics are painful to hear anyone think let alone feel when squished between a chord, a beautifully sung note, and the rawness it reveals you are drawn into a world not all of your own. Last night I lied awake in bed thinking “OH SHIT it’s time for some more John Mayer jams I should tune in,” fast forward about 10 minutes and I am not only a blubbering mess I’m waking my partner up.” The connectivity of layman’s terms of drifting into and over 40, once a spry eyed youngin who realizes the craziness and harshness of this world and the reality of the fragility of our present times. All comes to a head.

I think I remember the dream that I had

That love’s gonna save us from a world that’s gone mad

I guess I just feel like

What happened to that?

Some have said the song is too simple but restraint in any profession: photography, cooking, and music takes class, skill, and patience. We’ve waited long enough for new material. That said you can tune into some of his hysterical content on his IG feeds. Storytime with JM is one my faves. Again not so much fangirling as admiring. He’s a skilled musician, loves comedy, and has very much branched into this genre too.

Following his illustrious career, many dogged him for, well, being a dog. People got trapped into the funny and sometimes scary part of caring who he is dating or better yet what he is wearing. Our boy is a stylish-one but also wears some funky and fun things. I imagine he likes to just throw his personality into everything he does. Like the new single.

Unlike many of his previous releases, there was a more organic approach to promoting this song. With his last single “New Light” there were funny photoshoots and insane outfits along with other things that made you giggle. This time it’s straightforward here is something I wrote and rewrote with fancy tech gadgets and couldn’t get it out and decided to go back to a simple single guitar and cheap mics I picked up that day.

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#tbt I spent August and September of last year looking for new songs and couldn’t find them. I was thinking with my ultra-aesthetic brain, trying to write the tune I thought would be cool to have via sequencers, plugins and effects. (That process has worked barely enough times to still make it justifiable.) Then one day in October I decided I’d had just about enough of myself, and that’s always when the good stuff starts. I got two inexpensive microphones, a 1” tape machine and took out my Martin D-45 guitar. “I’m just going to do what I do,” I remember thinking. And then it all clicked again. I wrote most of “I Guess I Just Feel Like” in an hour. It’s great luck that my friend @daniel happened to stop by to take some photos the day this song was written. The moral of the story? Honesty is the best technology. I can’t wait for you to hear it tonight.

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Mayer 💎 (@johnmayer) on Feb 21, 2019 at 10:46am PST

He lets the guitar tell the story through him and I cannot stress enough JM hater or big fan this is a song for everyone. No matter what genre you enjoy anyone being brutally honest with their reality earns a listen.

Interesting Tidbits:

Mayer, when talking about the new song song:

“I’ve never released a song before where my only ambition was to be understood, and maybe to make others feel understood in the process”

On himself and a possible hip-hop track:

“I’m naturally hyperbolic, I’d never buy myself on a hiphop song”

His interesting notion on :

“Pants: every single outfit and feeling revolves around pants – make sure to pick the right ones!”

And lastly on writing an acoustic song:

“An acoustic guitar is a calculator of sorts if it doesn’t translate to an acoustic it won’t work”

“Sometimes you’ve just got to tell the truth with a guitar …”

Mayer, whose last album The Search For Everything was released in 2017, will be on the road throughout much of the summer. His first trek will be with Dead and Company for a tour that starts May 31st in California and culminates July 6th in Colorado. He will take a two-week breather then kick-off a solo run that starts July 19th in New York and ends September 14th in California.