Favorite Song Friday: No Such Thing

There are times, watching this video—as impeccable a union as can even be conceived between ravishing visuals and aural perfection—that it's easy to forget that John Mayer might possibly be the greatest guitarist, not just of his generation, but of the past 35 years. If he'll never threaten Jimi Hendrix's place, certainly since Jimmy Page abdicated the throne, he's a serious rival to the Edge and Johnny Marr and Nils Cline and Tom Morello, and most likely towers above them all.

His lyrics, obviously, are every bit the match of the transcendent music, with lines such as

I like to think the best of me is still hiding up my sleeve

since where else would one keep one's best but tucked away up one's sleeve like a parlor trick? It is the rare lyricist, indeed, who could come up with such a resting place, as most would think that an artist would prefer to show his best face, his best work, to the world. But John Mayer is not just any wordslinger.

This small but perfect gem opens with
"Welcome to the real world," she said to me condescendingly

which is juxtaposed against the later insightful query

And all of our parents, they're getting older
I wonder if they've wished for anything better
While in their memories
Tiny tragedies

Oh goodness. The way the question is unanswered—indeed, the entire thought wholly unfinished, as if the pressure of the impending chorus caused him to leave it hanging there like a tattered, wilted piece of mistletoe left bereft after Valentine's Day, so despondent it apparently never even occurred to ask the parents in question the question. The angst is unparalleled in rock and roll—only Drake or Smith or perhaps Donovan or Bieber could come close in scope and depth—and all the more anguished for it.

I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you've got to rise above

Voice of a Generation? No. Or, rather, yes, but that's not enough, that's not nearly enough. That's like suggesting Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a little musical aptitude, or Steve Guttenberg possessed a modicum of comedic talent. So Voice of Our Generation? Sure. But Voice of All Generations is more like it. But most important of all is this: John Mayer is the Voice of My Soul. He says the things I feel but lack the talent, the courage, the words to say.

Take, for example, the concluding lines

And when I stand on these tables before you
You will know what all this time was for

with their luminously literate allusions to leaders such as Bonaparte, Churchill, Palin, Khan, Gingrich, Alexander, Caesar, and the unstated but indisputable conclusion that he and he alone, John Mayer, will be there, magnificent atop the formica tables in the cafeteria to lead his poor benighted catechumens, like a modern-day Zelda Rubinstein with the body and visage of Apollo, into the light, not via the pearls of wisdom falling from his mouth but merely by sheer dint of his awesomeness, as no words will be needed. No, not for the likes of John Mayer acolytes—and whom amongst us cannot modestly call ourselves one? No, all they, all we, will need to do is gaze upon him and enlightenment shall be theirs. It shall be ours, all of us. That's rock and roll.

And speaking of: then, as the coup de grâce, we have the video itself, meaning we are blesséd to be able to watch him move, observe as he takes those lofty, abstract yet concrete concepts and alchemizes them into physical manifestations of integrity as his body translates those wisps of genius into the visuals of a pop song. As much as his dancing here reminds one of Michael Jackson in its feline, aqueous grace, it's his heavy-lidded, slack-jawed yet burning intensity that draws the obvious comparisons to the King himself, Elvis Presley. And when he gets to the goosebump-inducing bridge and purrs, "I am invincible," who would argue the point? Is there any such argument to be made?



No. No such thing. No such thing indeed.