John Mayer’s song, Stop This Train, is a great song about the fear of growing up. From the onset of the song, one can immediately feel the sadness and mellowness of the song.
After the second chorus it becomes just instrumental for a time. This pause from the vocals gives the listener time to reflect about how their own time has passed them by and how life just keep moving along at an undesirably fast paced. His falsetto is especially effective in this song because it resembles a crying voice.
Mayer also sings about a fear that everyone can relate to: that one day our parents will be gone. By singing about a commonly shared fear, John Mayer truly brings out a rush of emotions from us, and it’s hard not to choke up if one listens to this song intently.
(This is actually a great song to listen to right now for us college students. I could really see where John Mayer was coming from as I listened to this alone on my plane ride to and from Japan. I just felt like I was just being rushed into the next part of my life; I didn’t feel ready.)
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I had never heard this song, but I listened to it as I read your analysis. I love it! I really like it because, as you said, it relates so well to us right now. I agree that songs that relate to us well are the ones we like so much.
ReplyDeleteCool song, you can really get lost in it if you let yourself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about the lyrics, but I'd like to add something about the beat. This song has a really forward beat. Usually in slow/sad songs, people tend to drag the beat, but in this song, its a forward moving song. So even with the sand lyrics and the mellow-ness of the melody, it is pushing forward, kinda like what we have to do in life. We can't make it drag out forever.
ReplyDeleteI love this song, and I really enjoyed your analysis of it. John Mayer always does a fantastic job with symbolism, something I thoroughly enjoy in lyrics, and his comparison between life and a train really hits home to almost all audiences--sometimes we're just dying to get off and go home.
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