John Mayer's Artistic Process Misunderstood
Large-headed, sensitive singer John Mayer is blogging again. Today, he gets a little meta ("I wouldn't traditionally take to a blog to explain a blog"), trying to explain the "Dear ex lover, please stop contacting me" post that has US Weekly conducting a poll about which famous ex he's talking about: Jessica Simpson? Cameron Diaz? Oh, it was a hypothetical letter, John explains.
The blog - copied from my lyric/idea journal, is all about the P.S. - it's a writing technique called "deceptive resolution"; you think the story is going one way, only to find that it twists around at the end, using all its momentum to swing in another direction. In this instance, the writer of the missive is saying in as many certain terms as possible that he does not want to see his ex anymore. At the end, the P.S. leaves that all too common contradiction in terms that makes love so messed up. I call it "I wish you were here so I could tell you to leave".
This actually has some pretty far-reaching ramifications. How will I write an entire record of lyrics when one small blog passage incites so much curiosity? Can I write a song because of somebody but not about them?
That makes it much clearer.