Background Image

...

I Can't Stress Enough How Important It Is To Write Bad Songs. There's A Lot Of People Who Don't Want To Finish Songs Because They Don't Think They're Any Good. Well They're Not Good Enough. Write It! I Want You To Write Me The Worst Songs You Could Possible Write Me Because You Won't Write Bad Songs. You're Thinking They're Bad So You Don't Have To Finish It. That's What I Really Think It Is. Well It's All Right. Well, How Do You Know? It's Not Done!

-John Mayer

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Can't Stress Enough

John Mayer

...

I Can't Stress Enough How Important It Is To Write Bad Songs. There's A Lot Of People Who Don't Want To Finish Songs Because They Don't Think They're Any Good. Well They're Not Good Enough. Write It! I Want You To Write Me The Worst Songs You Could Possible Write Me Because You Won't Write Bad Songs. You're Thinking They're Bad So You Don't Have To Finish It. That's What I Really Think It Is. Well It's All Right. Well, How Do You Know? It's Not Done!

Views: 5

Topic

More From John Mayer

And I Start Sleeping And Dreaming And I Think I'll Dream About You, All Through The Night.

Playing Music To Me Is As Close To Having Super Powers As You Can Have.

I'm Not Really Good At Keeping My Own Secrets. I Can Keep Other People's Secrets Pretty Well. Unless They're Really Good And People Deserve To Hear Them. And I'll Disseminate The Information Accordingly.

Sometimes I Wish That I Was The Weather, You'd Bring Me Up In Conversation Forever. And When It Rained, I'd Be The Talk Of The Day.

Don't Be Scared To Walk Alone. Don't Be Scared To Like It.

Traveling Alone

I Remember Playing The Guitar Through The Amplifier Facing Out The Window Of My House Onto The Street In The Summer Time - That Was Social Media In 1992.

I Was Very Successful From A Very Early Age, And I Want To Keep It.

I Want To Be The First Guy From My Generation Who Doesn't Just Represent One Record But The Promise Of A Lot Of Them.

When You're Just Open But Not Honest, Then You Start Free-associating Garbage.

If I Wake Up In The Morning And I Don't Want To Get You A Coffee Or If I Don't See You For A Week And I Don't Want To Go Figure Out Something To Fedex You, Then We've Got A Problem. You Can Fake The Words I Miss You, But You Can't Fake Getting Someone A Book.

My Hits Are Not Hits.

I Knew What I Wanted To Do When I Was 13 And I Had To Go Through Four Years Of High School To Get Out. That's A Blessing, Because I Never Had To Lay On My Bed Staring Up At The Ceiling Going, 'what Am I Going To Do With My Life?'

When You Trust Your Television What You Get Is What You Got Cause When They Own The Information, Oh They Can Bend It All They Want.

Someday I'll Fly Someday I'll Soar Someday I'll Be So Damn Much More Cause I'm Bigger Than My Body Gives Me Credit For

Nothing Feels Worse Than Having To Break The Stage Down Before The Performance, And I Mean Nothing.

I Think That One Of The Greatest Connections And Attractions You Can Have With Somebody, Is Understanding Somebody.

If You Told Me I Was Going To Live To 240, I Would Take 10 Years Off And Try And Act. I Don't Have That Kind Of Time, So I'd Much Rather Stick To Playing Guitar.

This Is Not To Say, There Never Comes A Day I'll Take My Chances And Start Again. And When I Look Behind On All My Younger Times, I'll Have To Thank The Wrongs That Led Me To A Love So Strong.

There Are People In The World Who Have The Power To Change Our Values.

Power To Change

Pain Throws Your Heart To The Ground Love Turns The Whole Thing Around Fear Is A Friend Who's Misunderstood But I Know The Heart Of Life Is Good

There's A Certain Lack Of Gimmickry To What I Do That Makes People In England Go: 'where's The Thing?

Everybody Is Just A Stranger, But That's The Danger In Going My Own Way.

I'd Like To Think The Best Of Me Was Still Hiding Up In My Sleeve.

Fear Is A Friend Who's Misunderstood

I Am Invincible, As Long As I'm Alive.

People Want To See Musicians Sing Things That Come From Their Own Mind And Own Heart In Real Time, Responding To The Moment For Them.

Sometimes I Get Scared That I’m Going To Enter A Web Address Into Twitter Thinking It Was My Browser. That Would Be Bad.

She's Perfect, So Flawless, I'm Not Impressed.

When Autumn Comes, It Doesn't Ask. It Just Walks In, Where It Left You Last. And You Never Know, When It Starts; Until There's Fog Inside The Glass Around Your Summer Heart.

It's Very Liberating When You Finally Realize It's Impossible To Make Everyone Like You.

You Cannot Avoid War In Life, You Cannot Avoid The Fear Of Terrorism, You Cannot Avoid Those Things Now, They Are A Part Of Everyday Demeanor.

I Look Away At Car Crashes, And I Know People Who Look Away At Car Crashes, Because It Makes Us Uncomfortable To Watch Other People In Pain.

Welcome To The Real World, She Said To Me. Condescendingly. Take A Seat. Take Your Life. Plot It Out In Black And White.

Black And White

I Scientifically Engineer My Music To Be As Accessible As Possible.

I Hate Being The Heartbreaker. Hate It. If I Date Somebody And It Doesn't Work Out, It's Another Nightmare For Me.

I Can't Stress Enough How Important It Is To Write Bad Songs. There's A Lot Of People Who Don't Want To Finish Songs Because They Don't Think They're Any Good. Well They're Not Good Enough. Write It! I Want You To Write Me The Worst Songs You Could Possible Write Me Because You Won't Write Bad Songs. You're Thinking They're Bad So You Don't Have To Finish It. That's What I Really Think It Is. Well It's All Right. Well, How Do You Know? It's Not Done!

I've Never Done Anything Because I Thought It Would Look Cool.

I'm Not An Icon. Not Even In America.

No Matter What I Do, I'm Going To Earn It.

Waiting On The World To Change.

You Look So Good It Hurts Sometimes.

There's So Many Inspiring People Out There.

You Get To A Certain Age Where You Prepare Yourself For Happiness. Sometimes You Never Remember To Actually Get Happy.

We're Supposed To Lose Our Friends To Time, At An Age When We're Ready To Agree To The Terms Of Having Lived A Long Life. Not Now.

The Emotionally Intelligent Person Is Skilled In Four Areas: Identifying Emotions, Using Emotions, Understanding Emotions, And Regulating Emotions.

Atlanta's My Musical Home. It Really Was The Place Where I Really Came Alive.

I Wanna Run Through The Halls Of My High School, I Wanna Scream At The Top Of My Lungs. I Just Found Out There's No Such Thing As The Real World, Just A Lie You've Got To Rise Above.

You Make A Choice In Your Life, And It Affects Your Life In All The Ways, Good And Bad.

A Man's Got Two Shots For Jewelry: A Wedding Ring And A Watch. The Watch Is A Lot Easier To Get On And Off Than A Wedding Ring.

I Love You More Than Songs Can Say, But I Can't Keep Running After Yesterday.

I Need To Learn How To Start Saying No. Like When Someone Says ‘please Stop Choking Me.’

When You're Dreaming With A Broken Heart, The Waking Up Is The Hardest Part. You Roll Outta Bed And Down On Your Knees And For A Moment You Can Hardly Breathe.

How Come Everything I Need Always Comes With Batteries?

Unanswered Questions

I Don't Write Songs In Order To Stick It To My Exes. I Don't Release Underground Dis Tracks.

I Don't Jerk Off Because I'm Horny. I'm Sort Of Half-chick. It's Like District 9. I Can Fire Alien Weapons. I Can Insert A Tampon. No, I Do It Because I Want To Take A Brain Bath. It's Like A Hot Whirlpool For My Brain, In A Brain Space That Is 100 Percent Agreeable With Itself.

I Quit The Media Game. I'm Out. I'm Done.

The Night I Was Recognized For 'daughters' At The Grammys Was The Night This Record Started. I Knew I Had Bought The Time To Learn Everything I Needed Before I Started This One. 'continuum' Is Not A Shot In The Dark, It's Not A Guesstimation.

My Fear Is That I Go Up To The Girl Of My Dreams And Say 'i'm Sorry, But I've Got To Say Hello To You,' And She Slides The Stool Back And Gets Up And Walks Away, Saying, 'not For Me, Bub. I Don't Want Anything To Do With You.'

I'm The Only Person I Know Who's Got A Bunch Of Money.

Maybe Someday You Can Accuse Somebody Of Being A Poseur By Selling Out And Playing Blues Music, But That's Just Not Going To Happen In My Lifetime.

You Gotta Be Able To Explain Things To Yourself When The Lights Go Off And You Get In The Bed. You Gotta Deal With You At The End Of The Day.

The End Of The Day

Whenever They Say It Can’t Be Done, Remind Them That They Make A Jellybean That Tastes Exactly Like Popcorn.

Might Be A Quarter Life Crisis, Just Disturbin' In My Soul.

Love Is Like Grass. If You Fall On It, It May Leave A Stain And Some Temporary Pain. But You'll Get Over The Pain, It Will Eventually Stop Hurting. Now Maybe The Stain Ruined Your Favourite Pair Of Jeans, Or Maybe It Was Nothing Special That Was Ruined, But Either Way The Stain Remains There. And With Time, It Will Begin To Fade, But It Will Always Be There, A Permanent Reminder That You, Too, Once Fell.

What I Enjoy About The Live Experience Is Getting Onstage, Being Handed A Guitar That Is In Tune, Taking It Off Mute, Knowing That The Very Moment I Want To Play A Note, I Can Play It. People Are Waiting On Me And I'm Waiting On Me, And I Have No Idea What I'm Going To Play. That's The Biggest Joy In Life.

Disappointment Has A Name, It's Heartbreak

The Saddest Kind Of Sad Is The Sad That Tries Not To Be Sad. You Know, When Sad Tries To Bite Its Lip And Not Cry, And Smile And Say, "no I'm Happy For You"? Thats When It's Really Sad.

I Hope That What It Comes Down To At The End Of The Day Is That People Believe That I Believe What I'm Singing. It Comes Down To Being Believable. You Don't Have To Be Likeable; Generally, Though, I Think I Am.

I Have Masturbated Myself Out Of Serious Problems In My Life.

Today I Finally Overcame Tryin’ To Fit The World Inside A Picture Frame.

Someday, Everything Will Make Perfect Sense. So For Now, Laugh At The Confusion, Smile Through The Tears, Be Strong And Keep Reminding Your Self That Everything Happens For A Reason.

When You Do An Interview With Me, You're Talking To A Cheap Imitation Of The Person That I Really Am. There's No Magic In My Words, It's Just Me Talking.

You Should Have A Picture Of Yourself As A Kid In Your Home So That You Remember Where You Came From.

They Read All The Books, But They Can't Find The Answers.

I Went To My Library, Right? And I Started To Research The Bill Of Rights And I Did Not Technically Find Anything That Said All Americans Shall Eat Shrimp With Whoever They Like. But, I Found Some Things That Are Close Enough To Infer That I Am Within My Legal Rights To Enjoy Seafood With Whomever I Choose.

I'm Interested In Living More Of A Life That's Invisible To Everybody And More Vibrant To A Fewer People That Are In My Life.

I Am Who I Am Because Of Dave Matthews Band

People Are Really Concerned With What Other People Are Saying About Them.

The Tweets Are Getting Shorter, But The Songs Are Still 4 Minutes Long. You're Coming Up With 140-character Zingers, And The Song Is Still 4 Minutes Long…i Realized About A Year Ago That I Couldn't Have A Complete Thought Anymore. And I Was A Tweetaholic. I Had Four Million Twitter Followers, And I Was Always Writing On It. And I Stopped Using Twitter As An Outlet And I Started Using Twitter As The Instrument To Riff On, And It Started To Make My Mind Smaller And Smaller And Smaller. And I Couldn't Write A Song.

So Scared Of Getting Older, I'm Only Good At Being Young.

I May Have Taken Someone Through The Wringer Psychologically, But I've Never Been Sinister.

I Mean There Are So Many Different Colors Of Life, Of Feeling, Of Articulation... So When I Meet Someone Who's An 8-color Type... I'm Like, 'hey Girl, Magenta!' And She's Like, 'oh, You Mean Purple!' And She Goes Off On Her Purple Thing, And I'm Like, 'no - I Want Magenta!'

Sometimes It Feels Like My Life Is Just One Long Day.

Fathers Be Good To Your Daughters, Daughters Will Love Like You Do. Girls Become Lovers, Who Turn Into Mothers, So Mothers Be Good To Your Daughters, Too.

I Can't Even Explain To You How Terrible That Feels, That I Equate Dating A Woman With Punishment, Shame, Guilt, Disappointment, Reproach, Reprimand, Persecution. It's A Nightmare.

I Am Beginning To Know What It Feels Like To Be A Woman. To Have People Looking At You All The Time. And I'm Sorry Ladies, I Had No Idea! But People Are Looking At Me All The Time. It's Like I Have Musical Boobies!

I Am Not In 'us Weekly.' I'd Have To Be Going Out With Someone Who Is In There To Be In There Myself.

I Just Wish They'd Put A New Word In The Dictionary Bigger Than Love Because Love Just Doesn't Describe What I Feel.

I Came From The Last Couple Of Years In A Generation Where We Didn't Have A Computer Around So We Didn't Waste As Much Time On The Internet As We Do Now So I Had Large Chuncks Of Time Which To Devote To Doing Something.

I'm Singing What I Want To Sing Based On The Emotion Of What That Day Feels Like. That's What Comes Out Of My Mouth And Guitar. That Impacts People. They Know Anything Can Happen.

Half Of My Heart's Got A Real Good Imagination, Half Of My Heart's Got You. . .half Of My Hearts Got A Right Mind To Tell You That Half Of My Heart Won't Do.

By The Time I Recognize This Moment, This Moment Will Be Gone. . . But I Will Bend The Light, Pretend That It Somehow Lingered On

I Mean, I’m Quite Happy. I’m Happy In All Aspects Of My Life. I'm Very Happy In All Aspects Of My Life.

Everybody Enjoys Arguing About The Current State Of Music Because It Feels As If You Are Talking About Something Incredibly Important, Yet It Requires Little Understanding Of The Subject Matter At Hand. It's Like World Politics Meets The Pink Questions In Trivial Pursuit. Points Are Made But Nothing Gets Accomplished.

My Life's A Sequel To A Movie Where The Actors' Names Have Changed.

I've Always Said I've Got The Coolest Fans, And I Brag About You Like Grandchildren When I Talk To Other Artists.

So Scared Of Getting Older I'm Only Good At Being Young So I Play The Numbers Game To Find A Way To Say That Life Has Just Begun.

Life Is Like A Box Of Crayons. Most People Are The 8-color Boxes, But What You're Really Looking For Are The 64-color Boxes With The Sharpeners On The Back. I Fancy Myself To Be A 64-color Box, Though I've Got A Few Missing.

It's So Interesting How Success Hits People And How They React To It.

The Biggest Mistake I Made And What Cost Me A Lot Of Enjoyment In My Life, Was Assuming That Everybody Cared. They Don’t.

It's Almost Charity Work, What People Have Done, Turning Other People On To My Music.

High School Is Like A Spork: It's A Crappy Spoon And A Crappy Fork, So In The End It's Just Plain Useless.

I Have Male Fans, But I'm Persuading Them To Become Female!

I'm A Good Music Provider, And I'm Fine With That. I'm A Quality Music Manufacturer.

Never, Ever Underestimate The Power Of 'id Like That.

I Feel Strikingly Domestic. We're In Our Own World With Two Busses And Trucks.

I Have The Obsessiveness Of Someone Who's A Sober, Recovering Addict Displacing His Addiction. Except I Never Had The Addiction.

Not Worrying Is A Skill. It's A Skill Not Breaking Down Every Single Moment.

I've Realized You Can Use A Fork As A Spoon If You Use It Rapidly Enough.

I Believe In Blues, And I Believe That It's Been Misrepresented.

Friends, Lovers, Or Nothing, We Can Really Only Ever Be One.

Every Song I Put On A Record Could Be A Single And I Just Pack My Bags For It... And The Minute It Takes Off, I'm Not Gonna Be Home For A While.

I Like Giving People Something They Don't Want To Miss The Next Time. It's A Show With Little Twists And Turns And Curves. It Has Me Being Silly And Stupid And Compassionate And Completely Deep.

If You Get Half A Million, At A Certain Stage You Probably Will Get 4 Million People, If They Are Able To Hear It. The Touring Thing Is Unbelievable. It Really Is Amazing From What We Did The Last Tour Even To What We Are Doing Now.

I've Figured Out My Learning Curve. I Can Look At Something And Somehow Know Exactly How Long It Will Take For Me To Learn It.

I'm Pretty Good At Taking Accountability Now, And I Never Did Anything To Deserve That. It Was A Really Lousy Thing For Her To Do.

I'll Never Let Your Head Hit The Bed Without My Hand Behind It.

Anybody Who Tells You To Have A Fallback Plan Are People Who Had A Fallback Plan, Didn’t Follow Their Dreams, And Don’t Want You To Either.

I'm A Mess Of Unfinished Thoughts.

The Outcome Of A Still Veracitless Life. Am I Livin' It Right?

Unanswered Questions

It’s My Failure To Sound Like My Heroes That’s Allowed Me To Sound Like Myself.

I've Never Walked Into A Restaurant, Asked For A Table And Been Told, 'we're Full.'

In A Time When Everything Can Be Next Day And Ordered And Put On Credit And Paid For, Music To Me Is Promise, All Promise, Very Little Realization. It's The Promise Of Walking Into A Room With A Guitar And Not Being Sure You Will Leave With An Idea That Will Take, Not Being Sure It Won't Slip Away From You.

I'm Willing To Make Compromises Based On Someone I Think Is The One, But I Think It's Psychologically Important To People When They're Famous To Be The Only Famous Person They Know.

Yeah, Under The Table And Dreaming Shaped The Way That I Think About Writing Songs.

I'm Not As Surprised In Going From Playing 1,000 Seats To 4,000 Seats As I Was From 100 To 500 Seats.

Look, Demanding Somebody Do Anything In This Day And Age Is Not Going To Fly.

Anybody Who's Made It Will Tell You, You Can Make It. Anyone Who Hasn't Made It Will Tell You, You Can't

I Have These Accidents, These Mistakes, These Self-inflicted Wounds, And Then I Tear My Head To Shreds About It For Days.

They Say Stay In The Lines, But There's Always Something Better On The Other Side.

Something Better

We Just Feel Like We Don't Have The Means, To Rise Above And Beat It. So We Keep Waiting, Waiting On The World To Change...

I'm Trying Everything I Can Not To Be Jaded 'cause I Don't Like Jaded Musicians.

Trying Everything

Most Times When You Try To Be All Things To All People, You End Up Being Nothing.

If You Had Started Doing Anything Two Weeks Ago, By Today You Would Have Been Two Weeks Better At It.

I Find Myself In Situations That I Know Would Be Unbelievable Pictures And I Have To Gauge, Is This Worth Taking The Camera Out? Am I Gonna Lose The Moment? Am I Gonna Get A Dirty Look From Sting?

I Feel My Shows Are Like A Late-night Talk Show That We Settle Down And Do Every Night.

Sometimes You Tell Someone To Never Call You Again; And Then The Phone Rings And You Hope It's Them - It's The Most Twisted Logic Of All Time.

I've Never Been A Bad Boy.

If You're Good, And You Know You're Good, And You Know You're Better Than Those People Getting Paid To Do It, You Still Have To Have An Open Ear….nobody's Music Is The Enemy Of Your Music…the Idea That Someone Else Has Made It When They Shouldn't Have Made It Is Toxic Thinking.

It's Better To Say Too Much, Than Never To Say What You Need To Say Again.

You Know I Used To Be The Back Porch Poet With My Book Of Lines, Always Hoping Knowing All The Time, I'm Probably Never Gonna Find The Perfect Rhyme. . .for Heavier Things

Very Few Things In Life Are Worthy Of The Kind Of Emotional Distress We Put Ourselves Through.

Songs Can Be Trojan Horses, Taking Charged Ideas And Sneaking Past The Ego's Defenses And Into The Open Mind.

There's A Real Self-serving Element To Hip-hop That Threatens Its Life Span.

Trying To Impress My Mother With Words Was One Of My Favourite Pursuits.

The Minute Hand Moves Faster Than You Think It Does.

What I've Learned In My Life, It's A Very Interesting Social Study For Me, To Go Back And Forth Between Being The Guy At Home And Being The Guy On The Road And Being The Guy In Studio And Being The Guy In The Interview. The Environment Around You Has So Much To Do With Your Character, And When I'm Home, My Character Really Changes Quite A Bit.

In The Quest To Be Clever, I Completely Forgot About The People That I Love And That Love Me.

Have You Ever Loved Somebody, Loved Her Completely, But Had To End The Relationship For Life Reasons?

Who Says I Can't Be Free From All Of The Things That I Used To Be?

I Know The Heart Of Life Is Good.

Ladies, If You Want To Know The Way To My Heart... Good Spelling And Good Grammar, Good Punctuation, Capitalize Only Where You Are Supposed To Capitalize, It's Done.

I Was Smart Enough To Know It Would Probably Make Me A Salable Item For The Paparazzi. I Knew I'd Have To Move To A Home That Had A Gate. But That Pearl Of Possibility That Lives In Your Heart When You Meet Somebody You Want To Know More About Has Such A Different Molecular Density Than Everything Else That You Have To Pursue It.

I Believe That My Life's Gonna See The Love I Give Returned To Me.

If You Never Stop When You Wave Goodbye You Just Might Find, If You Give It Time, You Will Wave Hello Again.

I Can't Describe It In Words, But I Can See It In My Head, Its Color, Its Light, Its Shapes, And I've Managed To Synthesize My Love For Myself By Way Of Many Different Reasonings And Processes, And I've Been Able To Really Synthesize My Own Satisfaction And Things That Do It For Me. They've Usually Been Self-taught, Self-instructed, Self-refined. So To Be With Anybody Else Has To Somewhat Lie In That Comfort Zone I've Created With Myself So Well.

I'm Not Deluded Enough To Think That Everyone Who Knows My Name Is A Listener. You Know, I Hope That Part Of That Interest - Part Of That Public Interest - Has To Do With Me Still Making Records That People Like.

God Only Knows How Much I'd Love You If You Let Me, But I Can't Break Through At All.

Half Of My Heart’s Got A Grip On The Situation, Half Of My Heart Takes Time.

I Am Tempted To Keep The Car In Drive, And Leave It All Behind...

Numb Is The New Deep.

May This Be The Year That Things Go Your Way Most Of The Time, And When They Don't, May You Have Great Friends To Lean On.

I Get Recognized Somewhere In Between Like Local Meteorologist And National Meteorologist.

Sometimes I Get So Bold And I'm So Confident About What I'm Doing That I Actually Try To Be More Of A Dork Because It's A Really Liberating Feeling To Experience What It's Like To Not Care.

Sometimes I Wish That I Was A Bong Hit, You'd Let Me In And You Would Love Every Minute.

Numb Is The New Deep, Done With The Old Me, And Talk Is The Same Cheap It's Been.

Stop Falling In Love With Everything That Lets You Down, Even If Your Hands Are Shaking And Your Faith Is Broken, Even As The Eyes Are Closing, Do It With A Heart Wide Open. Say What You Need To Say.

Falling In Love

Who I Am As A Guitarist Is Defined By My Failure To Become Jimi Hendrix.

I Need Some Kind Of Emotional Stake In It To Write My Lyrics, Assuming That Place. It Might Just Be An Emotion I Understand But Am Not Currently Experiencing Necessarily.

Trending Author

Category