John Mayer has feelings, too, even if he did act like a lout. The singer/songwriter says he felt like he was kicked while he was down by Taylor Swift’s song “Dear John!” He called the tune humiliating.
The song was probably the biggest breakup song of the year when Swift released it on her 2010 album Speak Now.
The country queen is known for using ex-relationships as fodder for her songs, but Mayer called the tune “cheap songwriting.”
“It made me feel terrible,” he tells Rolling Stone. “Because I didn’t deserve 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,” he added.
Swift and Mayer were romantically linked before the song’s release. Tabloids reported at the time that Swift was seen sitting on his lap with her arms around his neck, and a source claimed she spent the night in his hotel suite.
Did he make her a one-night stand? It sure sounds like it judging from the lyrics.
“Don’t you think I was too young
To be messed with
The girl in the dress
Cried the whole way home
Dear John, I see it all, now it was wrong
Don’t you think nineteen is too young
To be played by your dark twisted games, when I loved you so?
I should’ve known”
They reportedly split five months before the album came out.
Mayer ducked out of the public’s eye for almost two years following release of the song and devastating interviews in Rolling Stone and Playboy.
“I never got a phone call,” Mayer says about Swift’s intentions. “I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I’d already been dressed down.
“I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you’ve ever been, someone kicked you even lower?” When asked about the song’s lyric, “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?” John says, “I don’t want to go into that.”
Check out the tune below: