This month is the perfect time for a late-spring escape, whether you’re jet setting to a paradisiacal destination or just enjoying a relaxing weekend staycation. Wherever May might take you, and whoever you decide to take along with you, you’ll want to bring John Mayer’s latest album, The Search for Everything, to keep you company. But be warned—you’ll probably fall just as in love with him as you will with that tropical sunset you’re hoping to find.
We’ve become accustomed to hearing breakup songs from the young, bad boy who we knew John Mayer to be. Those dark, sad eyes longing for stability and sleep, albums full of desperate lyrics of resounding disillusionment with lasting relationships, and that uncaring attitude and romantic intolerance all suggested that perhaps his inability to hold onto a girl might be his own fault.
With a list of famous ex-girlfriends that are just as remarkable as his critically-acclaimed hit catalog, we’d be a fool to fall for someone like John Mayer—at least, we would have been until we heard The Search for Everything.
This album—creatively fashioned into two episodic releases, Wave One and Wave Two—challenges everything we thought to be true about the brooding songwriter with a song collection savoring strongly of maturity and moving on.
In the first track of the second EP, “Still Feel Like Your Man,” Mayer confesses the ease with which he falls back into feeling that lingering sense of belonging, like we all do, after a relationship has met its end. This ease seems more like honesty than a weakness, as the only sign of sadness found within the song is heard in the lyrics. Mayer champions his emotions in the melodic structure of the song, crafting up a smooth bass-line and turning the spotlight away from his feelings and onto those jazzy guitar parts oozing with chill.
The Search for Everything is documented water under the bridge, as well as pieced-together testimonies of the man who crossed the bridge and brought with him wisdom from the other side. John Mayer has seemed to grow up, yet we see him handle the achingly arduous task of letting go and moving on with such nonchalant charisma and unassuming grace that is translated through song as incredible strength—a far leap from the John Mayer crooning “Dreaming with a Broken Heart” or “Why Georgia.”
The intricacies of emotion and experience Mayer has intertwined in this album paints a precise picture of a master at his work—and his life, which—knowing anything about the singer’s romantic history—is impressive. This delicate portrait of the artist as an older and wiser gentleman reveals a different kind of John.
All of these personal implications about the man himself are easily understood with a close listen to the album, but Mayer will sweep you off your feet well before you realize how wonderfully he has changed. The Search for Everything is subtle poetry swimming through intoxicating guitar innovation and leaving room for us to breathe. The acoustic-driven “Emoji of a Wave” tenderly coaxes you into belief that letting go can be as effortless as it sounds—because it is for John.
The Search for Everything is your perfect companion as you embrace the last days of spring with John Mayer’s enchanting songs that make anything seem possible. Take it with you as you travel, have it be the soundtrack to your May romance, and fall in love with the new John Mayer.
