Say

John Mayer - Say [New]
by wonderful-life1989

Take out of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all of your so called problems
Better put them in quotations
Say what you need to say (8x)

Walkin like a one man army
Fightin with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you’d be better off instead
If you could only
Say what you need to say (8x)

Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You better know that in the end its better to say too much
Than to never to say what you need to say again

Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open
Why?
Say what you need to say (25x)

I don't often write about song lyrics. But if you had to peg me in the musical genres spectrum, it would probably be as a fan of the singer/songwriter. Ever since the day I started singing with some friends in a traveling gospel band in the early 70s and playing along with my bass guitar, I valued the simplicity of a good lyric, a decent melody, and a simple guitar accompaniment. So after a couple years on the bass, I opted to pick up an acoustic guitar and start doing some solo work.

I wasn't a songwriter, but I loved finding those songs which fit naturally with some simple strumming or finger picking and either a six-string or twelve-string acoustic.

Being a somewhat typical boomer, you can probably now predict with some accuracy who and what I like to listen to in the singer/songwriter genre. There wouldn't be a lot of surprises. And I really don't give a damn whether anyone thinks I'm a sentimental old fool, or that I might have some rather simple tastes, or even that I'm predictable. All I know is when someone or something turns my fancy, makes me replay a musical selection, or tweaks some extra listening or occasionally some extra reflection.

John Mayer's music is, as you might expect, something which often fits. I have most of his albums and look forward to his new releases. One which I just downloaded from Apple's iTunes today is Say.

Like so much of his music, I find that Mayer is both accessible and just a bit surprising. He breaks some rules some of the time, rules like don't keep repeating a phrase or don't put the bridge in too early. In Say, he repeats a single phrase eight times over...several times.

"Say what you need to say...say what you need to say...say what you need to say..."

I haven't seen the movie The Bucket List and until this evening I hadn't seen the music video.

But the music and lyrics resonate with me...a lot.

I don't need a personal bucket list...at least not just yet. But I do need to say what I need to say. "Better to say too much than never to say what you need to say." That could be a page right out of my own book. Thank you John Mayer. Thanks so much.