Music Review: John Mayer "Why Georgia"

John Mayer

Why Georgia

Album: Room For Squares

Year: 2003

         John Mayer questions the choices he’s made in the weighty “Why Georgia.”

                A faraway guitar opens the single,  setting a rational tone. He’s on the expressway on his way home from his part-time job where he’s been working nights. He doesn’t like it there but it’s all he can find. He’s looked for jobs in the business field, pertaining to his degree, but has been unable to get past the first interview, if he gets a call at all. There aren’t dating prospects and he can’t afford much. He’s defeated and demoralized, wanting to forget it and start over. It doesn’t matter where. (“I am driving up 85 in the/Kind of morning that lasts all afternoon/Just stuck inside the gloom/Four more exits to my apartment but/I am tempted to keep the car in drive/And leave it all behind.”)

                In the pre-chorus, he’s aware he’s at the point of his life where major decisions are necessary. Will he ever have a future? (“Cause I wonder sometimes/About the outcome/Of a still verdictless life.”)

              In the chorus, he asks him if he went to the right college and or if he chose the wrong field. He thinks to back to his previous ex-girlfriend. Maybe he was too hasty in breaking up with her. He has to be doing something wrong. (“Am I living it right?/Am I living it right?/Am I living it right?/Why Georgia, why?”)

           He doesn’t have a home filled with the wife and children he thought he would have by now. He returns to an empty place. At first, he brushes it off as a phase but believes it’s his desire to make a change. (“I rent a room and I fill the spaces with/Wood in places to make it feel like home/But all I feel's alone/
It might be a quarter life crisis/Or just the stirring in my soul.”)

            In the pre-chorus, it doesn’t matter if it’s a phase or need for a change, his life hasn’t seemed to start yet. (“Either way I wonder sometimes/About the outcome/Of a still verdictless life.”)

           The chorus is sung again.

            In the bridge, when people ask him how he’s doing, he plasters on a grin and says he’s great. He’s sent out some resumes and he may have an interview. Otherwise, the part-time job is going all right. It’s a job. However, when they walk away, he heaves a sigh, thankful the conversation is over and that he doesn’t have to lie anymore. He’s actually thinking he’s a failure and may be stuck in his part-time job forever. (“So what, so I've got a smile on/But it's hiding the quiet superstitions in my head/Don't believe me/When I say I've got it down.”

        However, it’s the indenpendence he wanted and it meant being on his own. Everyone told him to be a lawyer like his father. He keeps the saying “everything happens for a reason” in his mind to remind himself why. It only works for so long.   (“Everybody is just a stranger but/That's the danger in going my own way/I guess it's the price I have to pay/Still "everything happens for a reason”/Is no reason not to ask myself.”)

       The chorus is sung again to end the single.

 

   Mayer’s introspective, despondent vocals examine his reasoning for every decision for the last couple years. Each time it seems like he’s approached some peace with the choice, something happens at work or with a girl and the questions begin again.

       The honest “Why Georgia”  knows it doesn’t have the answers but has the intelligence to keep asking.