John Mayer’s, Waiting on the World to Change, was written around 2006. 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.
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.
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