Who Cares If I Don't Get Stoned

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV068_E2I94&feature=player_embedded

John Mayer did this live in LA last week, and it combines all of the things I love about early 70s singer songwriting:

a) solid melodic singing
b) easy chords on the acoustic guitars
c) this seductive style, where he pretends he doesnt really care, but he gets all the pussy anyways, and he subtly insinuates this to the woman he is fucking (compare Gordon Lightfoot's Beautiful, Loudon Wainwright's Say That You Love Me, Harry Nillson's Without You; John Lennon's Jealous Guy, or any number of Dylan's track)
d) The casual drug references.

i kind of like and kind of hate Mayer's public personae, and i sort of hate the misogyny found in a lot of those tracks, and yet, when someone sings about lonlieness and love, it has this comnforting sadness, this blanket of meloncholy and i feel seduced. Mayer knows how to play this game, and it makes me think he is a much better song writer then he has been given the chance to be.