John Mayer - “Waiting On The World To Change”

  We start out with random shots of some city, possibly NYC, with images of buildings and skylines. There’s not a lot of people around, which means that Glenn Beck must be in town, but this is not confirmed. Cut to John walking along the river, heading toward what could be the Brooklyn Bridge or possibly Aretha Franklin’s next hairdo. He doesn’t look very happy, but then this song isn’t exactly about brown paper packages tied up in string.

  We begin seeing some folks messing around in what might be an artist’s studio, sketching out draft versions of something and flipping through picture books for inspiration. Some of these books look very, very angry. I’m going to assume that there won’t be any rainbows and unicorns in the final art project. Just a guess.

  John keeps walking, because that’s just something you do in New York. (That, and pay too much for everything.) Cut back to the artist colony or whatever, and some of the folks seem to be prepping gas masks for use, which seems a little odd, even for people with the variety of tattoos that some of them have. But most of them seem content with just the sketching and the wearing of unique, confrontational clothing. (What is that one man wearing on his head? I guess we don’t have stores like that where I live.)

  Things become a little clearer when the guys start gathering up spray paint cans. Ah, so we’re about to do some serious tagging, are we? I thought people did that out of boredom and/or drunkenness. I didn’t realize you had to make plans and study books and type up an itinerary. And have John Mayer narrate your story while wearing a hoodie and walking glumly next to a dirty river. Seems like a lot of work to me.

  The guys finally head outside and split into a few groups, carrying their gas masks and paint cans, an image that will make innocent bystanders feel completely comfortable, right? Some of the guys are climbing over walls and such, but I don’t know if they are actually sneaking around the city or just goofing off in somebody’s backyard.

  It takes a while for everyone to get to their destinations, since they first have to do important things like stop for coffee and pose with tourists while wearing the gas masks. (The tourists, like most tourists, are really happy to be having their picture taken even though they have no idea what’s going on. This is how the “American Idol” auditions were born.) Eventually, everyone gets to their locales and out come the spray cans.

  It’s actually quite interesting to see how the images take shape, in an “oh, so that’s how they make the overcrowded graffiti I can see while riding the subway” kind of way. Of course, it helps that these guys are obviously actual artists, and not just degenerates unprofessionally spraying lame sentiments such as “Thump Daddy” or “Azz Master” or “U A Bitch!”.

  John’s still walking along that damn river, probably wisely avoiding any legal issues that might arise from questionably-attired men spraying things like guns and exploding worlds on the side of a delicatessen. Good move, John, it’s hard to accept a Grammy from your prison cell.

  So far, they’ve only let us see bits and pieces of the whole images, mixed in with odd-angle shots of cans shaking, arms spraying and defiant clothing, so there’s a bit of excitement about what the final products will look like. At the same time, this is the part of the song where John tells us about 147 times that he’s waiting on that world change mess. Got it, John, me too. Now, can we look at the pictures?

  Nope, not yet, we’ve got to review some scenes of people sitting around all disaffected but hopeful, gazing at the camera with wistful longing for a better place and time. These people must work at the same place that I do.

  And, finally, there we go with the big reveal. The artwork really pops, and although there may have been a bit of camera trickery, the placement of the pieces is really impressive. I’m not a fan of defacing public property, but these things look pretty cool, even more so considering they had to sneak around while they were doing this. Then the song ends and we get a disclaimer that “All murals were produced on private property by commissioned artists.”

  Well, hell, that sort of sucked the fun out of it. John, dude, a bit on the wimp-out side, eh? Where’s your rebel spirit? Then again, you’ve dated Jennifer Love Hewitt, so that pretty much trumps anything I might have to say. Rock on with your law-abiding self.


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John Mayer, Taylor Swift - “Half Of My Heart”

  We start out with John wandering into a cocktail bar, mixed with quick glimpses of what might be a church. While John presumably swigs a beverage, he fiddles with a boutonniere and then tosses it aside. (Maybe he doesn’t care for baby’s breath.) Quick shot of a tiny flower girl, and then suddenly John is in another room with strange décor, strumming his guitar that he apparently had in his back pocket.

  John sings for a bit, with the camera showing that, yep, that’s really him playing. Another shot of the flower girl doing something, then back to John in the bar, singing to himself in the mirror. He may not like little flower buds in his buttonhole, but he sure doesn’t mind studying his reflection.

  Back to this church, where it becomes clear that people are getting frustrated waiting for someone to show up at a wedding. We’ll have to assume it’s John, because everyone else seems to be there: a bride, a secretly-lustful bridesmaid, a best man, and at least two women who look like they could fill the role of bitter mother-in-law. Back to John singing and playing and not showing up.

  Cut to somebody wiping “Just Married!” off of a car window, but not really doing a very good job because they’re just smearing the shoe polish around. John’s still in the bar, proving in one scene that he’s a ventriloquist, and in another scene that he can drink while either sitting down or standing up, whichever makes us more happy. More shots of disgruntled people leaving the church, possibly calling people named Guido to come put a cap in John’s self-indulgent ass.

  John continues to play his guitar in that one room with the outer-space thing on the wall and the weirdly-carved wooden screen. These things are totally distracting and they really need to get rid of them. Does John not understand that if we’re looking at the props in confusion then we’re not looking at him?

  People are still leaving the church, which is also starting to get a little old. Everyone’s very pretty, yes, but they’re still just people leaving a church. I think we all understand that nobody will be getting to throw rice. Let’s do something else for a bit, shall we? Wait. The best man just made a smirk that no one else could see. Interesting. Okay, which one of them is he sleeping with?

  John’s not telling. He just wants to play his guitar in the poorly-decorated lobby of the Chinese buffet restaurant. Oh, and he wants to drink, too. We keep going back to that as well.

  Now we have the bride packing up her wedding dress and shoving it back in a box, while the bridesmaid looks a little peevish, irritated that her friend got to wear something so sparkly and she didn’t. They’re both wearing rubber bracelets, so they probably really liked Madonna back in the day, before she got super-famous and started buying entire countries.

  Cut to the best man showing up in the bar, so it’s apparently not the first time that John either drank or avoided a matrimonial procession. He spies his buddy and wanders over. (The other John is still playing a selection for the all-you-can-eat diners waiting for a table.) The best man doesn’t stay long or even order anything, instead patting John on the shoulder and preparing to leave.

  Once the pointless visit from his friend is over, John pulls out a piece of paper with the words “I can’t stop loving you” scrawled on it. We aren’t sure who may have scribbled this (did John write it to his mirror image?) but it cues Taylor Swift to start singing her bit of the song. John then wanders out of the bar. We don’t see him leave a tip, so he’s one of those people.

  He walks down the street for a while, singing, interspersed with images of someone dropping flower petals. Turns out that those hands belong to the petite flower girl. The wedding may have been cancelled, but she’s still going to perform her floral distribution duties, damn it. Nobody puts the baby in a corner!

  John continues to sing to unknown pedestrians passing on the sidewalk, while other people put out wedding candles and look dispirited. Eventually, John hails a taxi and hops in. Final shot is of someone with enormous lips blowing out a candle, the smoke drifting upwards.

  Meanwhile, a thoughtful and musically-appreciative couple waiting in line at the Chinese buffet throws some spare change into the hat at the other John’s feet. He looks in the mirror and thanks himself…


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