When there is time to reflect upon, then you feel many things should have been said, or expressed, differently. For me, this has happened a lot of time in last few weeks. The first time I heard this song, I was feeling "damn!"
The song I heard was a live rendition, with people hearing it making as little a noise as possible. When it starts with the deep nasal voice of John Mayer, with his guitar also tuned to same broken timbre and the way he sings the strung words, and the way it touches your emotions all touched some nerve in my system.
Before I actually heard the song itself, the reason why I chose to hear this was the title, "Slow dancing in a burning room". "Slow dancing" means there is an total oblivion towards the surrounding and a love - the feeling that only the partner and you are in the entire world. "Burning room" reminds about the kind of imagery which is shown in Towering inferno, Casino Royale, whatever you read/studied about Pompeii or Vandanam, a scene where you are about to lose everything but do not know what the loss is actually going to be, except that the impending danger of loss is enormous. Both of the words are poles apart in meaning, but there is a connection for some people. The feeling of let this moment not pass. This actually made me listen to it. I was not mistaken. The lyrics was also really good when it started.
It's not a silly little moment,
It's not the storm before the calm.
It's not the storm before the calm.
So it started. Slow guitars at first, plucked hard, and cut in between. Then the lyrics which said it is not so as you think. I liked the way the guitars played in the end also. When after the final repeat of the questions regarding the relationship, the guitars played it to the tempo. It is one advantage with John Mayer that his songs has strong chords, which is because of strong blues influence.
The song picks up in stages, and then ends with a flurry of questions. Between the stages, the lyrics stoke some fire, throw some egoistical statements and some frustrations peppered with love. All these show the kind of man actually John Mayer is. It is not my nature to follow the paparazzi news and tabloids, but John Mayer's relationship is pretty well described in Wikipedia. It shows his relationships in pretty straight forward way. Many parallels with the song. One thing I absolutely love about him is the way his emotions are poured into his songs. He strives to be very intellectual which is good, because no individual is born intellectual - it takes practice and a bit of set backs. Unfortunately the set backs in art (includes many!) are a bit too glaring in eyes of public. Hope he continues to make the kind of songs which are "open". Since the post is about this one song, I shall retain my rest of opinion for another post later.
Don't you think we shoulda learned somehow?
Don't you think we oughta know by now?
And for the best version of the song in YouTube, watch the video below:
