John Mayer Interpretation

With everything that’s going on in the world today, I believe music is one of the things that brings us closer and put peace within us. There are many beautiful pieces of music out there but one that I choose to analyze today is the song called Waiting on the world to change by John Mayer. John Mayer is a producer, song-writer, singer and guitarist. His music varies of genres which includes pop, rock, blues, folk, country music, and soul music. The reason why I choose this piece is because he is speaking to the younger generation and everyone else. For me, I think this song can be interpreted in many ways, looking at how the song repeats the word “Waiting” which can mean that all we can do is wait for things to change. The theme of

Also, there are many repetitive words. In the chorus throughout the song, Mayer (2006) states, “…So we keep waiting. Waiting on the world to change. We keep on waiting. Waiting on the world to change. It's hard to beat the system. When we're standing at a distance. So we keep waiting. Waiting on the world to change.” I believe he is saying that how can we want change if we aren’t doing anything about it. He wants to challenge people to really think about situations that we can prevent. A lot of people feel very powerless and I think this song can also be used as a motivational purpose. During an interview with the Daily Mail (2007) Mayer explained the reason he composed this song, he explained that, “…"I wanted to start a debate. Most of us are happy to wait for things to change." There are also a variety of poetic devices such as repetition, rhyme, hyperbole, alliteration etc. For example, in the first stanza he quotes, “…Me and all my friends. We're all misunderstood. They say we stand for nothing and there's no way we ever could.” That is an example of rhyme. It is also in similar motion which shows that he wants to exaggerate what he is saying because it’s an important