Leave the great indoorsnotes on the journey

November has been one formidable month.  No other way to describe it.  Getting settled into my new job (which I love), learning how to be a dad (although I’m pretty sure you never stop learning how to do that), and of course, a crazy 9-day trip to South Africa for work.

It was great to be home, but doing a 70 hour roundtrip journey across a gazillion time zones in 9 days is not recommended.  Turns out I’m not Superman…   I think I also figured out what hell is going to be like.  Here it is: In hell you will be in economy class on a full Boeing 747, flying around the world for all eternity.  Or worse — just stuck on the tarmack, the captain coming on every 10 minutes to say that you’re “almost ready for take-off.”

But enough about that.  The month has been one of the more exhausting in recent memory, but as I mentioned in my last post — this is the story Jess and I are writing for our lives right now, and we need to embrace it wholeheartedly.  Sometimes you get thrown a fast ball though, a plot twist gets inserted into your story without your knowledge, and it ends of bothering you much more than it should.  For me, this unnecessary fast ball is John Mayer’s new album, Battle Studies.

Let me step back and explain a few things before I get into my rant…  John Mayer’s first album, Room for Squares, came out a few months before Jess and I met.  Jess introduced me to it while we were living in Australia, and it became a soundtrack for the first (rocky) few months of our relationship.  It was a time punctuated with remarkable ups and downs, and no matter what the emotion, Room for Squares was there with a song to sum up the playful (“I play a quick game of chess with the salt and pepper shaker“), melancholy (“Would you love me when I’m not myself“), nostalgic (“You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes, it brought me back to life”), and alive with promise (“Leave the great indoors…”) time that was the beginning of our relationship.

Heavier Things came out while Jess and I were in a solid relationship, but during a time that I was living in South Africa and she was back in America.  A happy, sad time, once again summed up perfectly by the seriousness and, well, heaviness of Heavier Things.  From the first lyrics (“I worry, I weigh three times my body“), to the endless possibilities (“I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for“) to the eerie similarities with our own situation (“And airports // See it all the time // Where someone’s last goodbye // Blends in with someone’s sigh // Cause someone’s coming home“).

And then, after we got married and settled into the US, came Continuum, an album that will forever be in my top 10.  It brought with it a maturity and a happiness, even in the sad songs, that once again fit our lives perfectly (“Gravity, stay the hell away from me…“).

So I became quite attached to this music, thinking that we will carry it with us as we go through our story, a perfect soundtrack.  And then, this week, I finally got a chance to listen to the new album, Battle Studies.  And forgive me for making this all about me, but it feels like a personal betrayal.  There are 3 songs that I like a lot (Heartbreak Warfare, Assassin, and Edge of Desire), but the rest of the songs feel incomplete and uninspired.  The lyrics are strange and immature (“Who says I can’t get stoned,” and “Maybe this mattress will turn on its axis and find me on yours”).  The music feels listless and lazy,with none of the searching all his other albums had.  Many of the guitar sounds have been used before.  And, come on now, a duet with Taylor Swift?  Seriously?

Ok, I’m overreacting, and John Mayer will survive the disappointment of one fan, seeing that the album is now the No. 1 album in the US.  But for me, it once again underlined the importance of music, and how musicians have the ability to embed themselves deep into our lives, even though we stay far away from them (I stopped following John Mayer on Twitter long ago, preferring to know him through his music rather than his 140-character thoughts).  And when an album doesn’t meet your expectations, it does feel like a personal betrayal.  They carry great responsibility with their talent.

I will always have Continuum, and maybe John Mayer will come back with a great album next time (because, like I said, it’s about me, right?!).  But for now, I’m gonna go ahead and feel betrayed by this new album.  And fine, Heartbreak Warfare is a great song…