John Mayer, the unlikely heartbreaker

John Mayer is a tabloid editor’s dream come true. He is famous, good-looking, talented, he always has something interesting going on in his lovelife, and he is a kiss and tell who talks about his girls in his interviews. He backtracks for a while when caught foot in mouth but would soon be up to his old tricks again.

Truth to tell, I thought Mayer would lay low for a while after he took the country-pop star Taylor Swift to task for supposedly writing a song about their break-up. Mayer said he felt humiliated by the song and that it was a piece of cheap songwriting. Swift did not say that the song was about Mayer, only that the subject was apparent. Dear John, she wrote in the song also titled Dear John, in her big-selling album, Speak Now. “I see it all, now it was wrong, don’t you think 19 is too young to be played by your dark, twisted games, when I loved you so.”

But there seems to be no stopping the Grammy winner as far as girls are concerned. I found this out when I opened the newspaper and read the bold letters, Mayer and Katy Perry have broken up. Katy Perry! Were they ever on? It turned out that Mayer and the ex-Mrs. Russell Brand did recently date, but only for a while. This bit of news made me want to check about Mayer’s other “for a while” encounters.

I went into the Net and typed, John Mayer girlfriends and received a windfall. There they were females of all ages, shapes and sizes. Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, Cameron Diaz, Ricki Lake, Vannessa Carlton, Kim Kardashian, Miska Kelly, Holly Williams and others. Whew!!! This guy makes George Clooney and Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise look like monks. 

I do not know, how much truth there is to the list. You know how showbiz gossip goes. Besides, for all we know, there might even be some names, most probably non-celebrities, who did not make it to the listing. And this guy is only 34 years old. At the rate he is going, he might just shatter Warren Beatty’s Hollywood record as a womanizer.  

Mayer’s track record as a lothario makes everybody curious. What has this guy got? He must make other men feel insecure. Girls might say they do not want to have anything to do with him but as with what happened to Perry who was said to have held out falling for Mayer for a long time. But just like her predecessors did, she eventually fell for him, doubtless hopeful that her stint will be different and he will not be the one that got away.

From left: Taylor Swift, Jennifer Aniston and Katy Perry are among Mayer’s famous ex-girlfriends

No matter the number of girls, I was glad to find out that Mayer’s exploits have not in any way affected the quality of his music. He seems to juggle both parts of his life effortlessly. He is writing and singing his songs on one hand and then cutting a wide swath as a heartbreaker on the other. His latest, Born And Raised, is a laidback acoustic effort by an artist assured of his talent and confident about what he wants to do.

This is Mayer’s fifth studio album. Room For Squares, Heavier Things, Continuum and Battle Studies were those that came before. Each one showed him at his best at the time. Each one was an improvement on the previous album. I listened to Born And Raised and I started thinking what a remarkable guy he really is. The CD is not only his best. It is also his most daring to date.

Mayer seems to be taunting the traditional support groups of today’s artists. Like radio. There is nothing like Your Body Is A Wonderland in it so the big question is, would DJ’s play Mayer doing country rock? Another one is his fan base, who know him as a pop star. While Mayer is impressing critics as he channels Neil Young of the ’70s, he even got David Crosby and Graham Nash to play in the album, those girls who swoon over him are wondering why they can’t find a new hit single.

I do not hear any either. This is because, Born And Raised was created as a total experience and that goes for everything, from that cover art to the way the songs are sequenced. Listen once to this and I am sure you would want to hear it again and again. It is sweet, fun and gritty. If Mayer, the lover is anything like his songs, I am not surprised anymore why girls keep falling for him.