MTV News dives into Mayer's new album, a countrified LP that finds the onetime pop heartthrob grappling with being a grown-up.
By Jocelyn Vena
John Mayer
Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images
John Mayer has always been something of an old soul when it comes to music. He has shown it by teaming up with blues legends like B.B. King, and he proves it once again on his newest release, Born and Raised, the follow-up to 2009's Battle Studies.
Released on Tuesday (May 22), Born and Raised finds the 34-year-old reflecting on adulthood and putting his "Shadow Days" behind him ("It's nice to make some love that I can finally feel," he sings on the track). While Mayer hasn't completely let go of his lady-killer image, as when he's yearning over another man's girl on "Something Like Olivia," he spends more time expressing regret over unfulfilled dreams and what it means to be an adult.
Last week MTV News sat in on an album listening session at New York's Electric Lady Studios, where Mayer told the room, "If you're lucky, you get to make giant evolutionary steps from your first record." We've highlighted five key tracks from the LP below, and we'll let you decide if the singer/songwriter made those giant steps.
"Born and Raised": The album's title track seems to sum up where John is these days. With harmonica and guitar backing him, he admits, "Now and then, I pace my place/ I can't retrace how I got here/ I cheat the light/ To check my face/ It's slightly harder than last year." Later he says, "Then all at once/ It gets hard to take/ It gets hard to fake what I won't be/ 'Cause one of these days/ I'll be born and raised/ And it's such a waste to grow up lonely." Mayer even addresses the heartbreak of his parents' 2009 divorce, singing, "I still got faith/ I call on both of my brothers/ I got a mom, I got a dad/ But they do not have each other."
On "If I Ever Get Around to Living," Mayer picks up where "Born and Raised" leaves off, giving fans a glimpse of pre-celebrity life in Connecticut. He wonders whether the fame and success is even real: "Maybe it's all a dream I'm having at 17/ I don't have tattoos/ And very soon mother will be calling me saying, 'Come upstairs, you got some work to do.' " In the end, he shakes off the fantasy, telling himself, "I think you better wise up, boy." He repeats that line over and over like a mantra.
Fans who are worried that the sexy Mayer of songs like 2003's "Come Back to Bed" doesn't make an appearance will be happy to hear "Love Is a Verb," a track full of longing. "So you gotta show me/ That love is a verb," he pleads. Simple and straightforward, Mayer reminds us that love is something you do, not just a word you say.
For "Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey," Mayer takes us to his occasional home of New York City, where he's "trying to find the man I never got to be." As the title suggests, the country-tinged song is all about drowning your sorrows in late nights and lots of whiskey, going to sleep and then waking up to do it all over again. And though Mayer knows that routine won't get him anywhere, he's just trying to get to a place where he can feel again.
The album takes another turn for the romantic near the end. "You know my paper heart/ The one I filled with pencil/ I think I might have gone and inked you in," he sings on "A Face to Call Home." Sure, the album is full of 30-something reflection, but Mayer can still craft a smart love song, and he's at his best on songs like this one.
Share your reviews of John Mayer's new album in the comments!

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Rapper tells MTV News about being at Mayweather's match against Miguel Cotto with the Biebs and Lil Wayne.
By Rob Markman
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Conrad Murray asks judge for a court-appointed attorney to appeal his involuntary manslaughter conviction.
By Gil Kaufman
<P>Just weeks after being sent to jail for four years following a conviction on a felony involuntary manslaughter charge in the death of Michael Jackson, cardiologist Conrad Murray is throwing himself on the mercy of the court.</P><P>The doctor had been slated to earn up to $150,000 a month to act as Jackson's personal physician before the pop icon's death in June 2009 from an overdose of the Murray-administered surgical anesthetic propofol. But on Tuesday E! News reported that Murray filed a notice of appeal in Los Angeles Superior Court in which he claimed that he is "indigent and respectfully requests the appointment of counsel on appeal."</P><P>Murray, 58, is planning to appeal both his conviction and his sentence, but has not yet filed papers with the California Appeals Court. He had hired two lawyers to handle his manslaughter case, but is now seeking attorneys with appeal experience. One of those former lawyers, J. Michael Flanagan, told E! that he was shocked at how his client is being treated in jail.</P><P>"It is crazy and unbelievable how [the sheriffs] are treating" Murray in jail, said Flanagan, who claimed he waited over an hour to see Murray, who was brought out in handcuffs and leg chains. Flanagan was further shocked to see Murray handcuffed to the table for their meeting, something the lawyer said he'd never seen before in the case of a low-level, non-violent offender.</P><P>Charles Peckham, who is handling civil cases against Murray, told the Associated Press that his client is under tight security and isolation that is more intense than other inmates at the Los Angeles Men's Central Jail.</P><P>"Treating him like Hannibal Lecter is offensive," said Peckham. "This man who saved lives made a mistake, and they're going to [make] him pay like a mass-murderer." Sheriff's officials defended the tight security, saying it was for Murray's safety.</p>
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