Second Listen Revision- Waiting on the World to Change
John Mayer’s, Waiting on the World to Change, was written around 2006 and released in 2007. Around this time in the United States, George W. Bush was the president at the time. George W. Bush was a member of the Republican party and served as president from 2001-2009. Mayer’s song was released in 2006, about 5 years into Bush’s presidency. A few of the lyrics in Mayer’s songs discuss the fact that he and all his friends are very misunderstood. Mayer also goes on to say that they could never stand for anything. What these lyrics lead me to believe is that they were not in favor of the Republican Party of the way in which President Bush was running the country at the time. In this song, he speaks for his friends as well as himself that they do not have faith in the government and would rather sit back and watch as the government leads the country. In an interview with Daily Mail around 2007, Mayer states that he was looking to start a debate with this song. It is possible that Mayer believed this was the best way to do so by reaching to his fans and getting his feelings out. Additionally, at the time of this song’s release, there were a lot of ecological social issues occurring in the world such as the beginning of global warming. It is clear that Mayer feels extremely passionate about this social issue and decided to use his fame as well as his platform in order to reach fans and other people to raise awareness and make a difference.
Mayer integrated his views into this song very clearly. “It’s hard to beat the system”, is a lyric from his song. This lyric can only mean one thing, that it is incredibly difficult to “beat” the government as well as the people in power. He also goes onto say that if he were in power or it was up to him, they would bring the troops home from war and they would never miss Christmas again. The “sociological imagination” here is that Mayer’s song is not just a catchy, song that led him to win a grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. It is a debate song that is meant to spark change or a movement. It is meant to be discussed and applied to our lives that we live from day to day
. It is also meant for us to look back at how our country and world is being run and decide whether or not we like it and if it needs to be changed.
On his blog, Mayer wrote that in this protest song he is trying to express the helplessness that comes along with knowing the world needs a change but not exactly understanding that it could be useless if he tries to speak up. Additionally, in this blog Mayer is allegedly alluding to global warming. “He proposes an alternative to denial and ideological bombardment – a ‘laid-back, panic-free approach to environmentalism’” (Macleod). Although John Mayer does admit to driving a Porsche SUV, drinking from plastic water bottles, and flying private charter planes he has tried to make a difference by converting his bus to Biodiesel. In the Waiting on the World to Change, music video, you can see Mayer running through the streets of New York City along the East River. There are also people in the music video who are spray painting graffiti on the walls on the streets with phrases like “Wake Up!” and “Exploited”.
February 27, 2020 at 7:29 pm
Allison,
This revised post is connecting the song to social issues much better than in the original post, but we still need to see a move overt discussion of just want what was happening with the Bush administration leading up to when the song was written. What was happening economically, environmentally, globally, and so on. In your podcast, like the ones we have listened to so far, you are going to need to be overt when sharing the context for the song, so please look for sources that help with that understanding — news reports, scholarly sources, organization reports, and so on. The Bush presidency was rocked by wars and recession and climate denial; there is quite a bit out there to be found and used to inform your understanding of the song.
Bill