Our theme for the month of October is “This Day in History.”

Happy birthday to John Mayer, my mortal enemy. If you’re going to (allegedly) shade Taylor Swift on her birthday, then I—a lifelong Swiftie—have no choice but to respond in kind.

The songwriter was born on October 16, 1977, notably twelve years before his future (alleged) romantic interest Taylor Swift would be born in 1989.

Taylor Swift and John Mayer met in 2009, when she was nineteen and he was thirty-two. They collaborated on Mayer’s single “Half of My Heart.”

At this point, John Mayer was a veteran of the music scene, having won seven Grammy awards with many more nominations. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift was a newcomer to the scene as her sophomore album Fearless was released in 2008. That year, she told Elle magazine that she “freaked out” when Mayer tweeted that he wanted to collaborate with her and confided that she was a longtime fan of his.

According to People magazine’s summary of their relationship, they were seen at dinner with friends after Swift’s split from Taylor Lautner in December 2009. Mayer continues to publicly sing Swift’s praises, commending her humility and talent.

The following October, Taylor Swift releases her third album Speak Now, with the heartbreaking and lyrical masterpiece that is “Dear John.” If the title weren’t enough to spark speculation that the song is about Mayer, her age in the song matches the age when she was involved with Mayer as she sings, “Don’t you think nineteen’s too be played by your dark twisted games?”

She describes a tenuous relationship with an emotionally volatile partner: “You paint me a blue sky and go back and turn it to rain/I lived in your chess game, but you changed the rules every day.” The bridge describes Swift leaving the relationship before this partner could ruin her: “All the girls that you’ve run dry have tired, lifeless eyes/Cause you burned them out/But I took your matches before fire could catch me.”

Swift declined to say who the song was about, but in 2012, Mayer discussed his reaction to the song with the assumption that it was about him. He told Rolling Stone that he was “really humiliated” by the song “because [he] didn’t deserve it. [He’s] pretty good at taking accountability now, and [he] never did anything to deserve that.” The digital summary of the article says, “When asked about the song’s line, ‘Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?” Mayer says, ‘I don’t want to go into that.’”

He continues to say that he takes issue with the song as an artist as it’s “cheap songwriting.” He says, “I think it’s abusing your talent to rub your hands together and go, ‘Wait till he gets a load of this!’ That’s bulls**t.”

Swift’s breakup track doesn’t seem to have had an enormous impact on his career as released four albums and had four Grammy nominations since its release. Yet, when hosting The Late Late Show in February 2015, he said in his monologue, “You can see me at the Grammy’s doing what I do best. Being avoided by Taylor Swift.” In 2016, notably seven years after their split, he tweeted on Swift’s birthday, “Tuesday, December 13 may be the lamest day of the year, conceptually.” He deleted the Tweets after facing some backlash online.

And it all began on October 16, 1977. Happy birthday, John Mayer. I hope you’re constantly getting images of the Eras Tour.

Tiffany Kajiwara

Tiffany Kajiwara graduated from Calvin in 2022 with majors in literature and writing. Now, she continues to live in Grand Rapids and works at Baker Academic Publishing as a marketing assistant. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, thrifting, and psychoanalyzing cartoon characters.