John Mayer—The Importance of Dads
January 10, 2009
John Mayer—The Importance of Dads
I’ve had this song stuck in my head all week. I love it. It’s by John Mayer, and it’s the best kind of song because he’s actually singing about a real problem.
He loves a girl. The girl is beautiful and lovely, but the girl can’t love him back because she has issues with her dad.
This song is important because it acknowledges that fathers are important to their children. While Mayer focuses on daughters, it’s equally true of sons.
I know a girl. She puts the color inside of my world,
but she’s just like a maze
where all of the walls are continually changed.
And I’ve done all I can, to stand on her steps with my heart in my hand.
Now I’m starting to see maybe it’s got nothing to do with me.
Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
so mothers, be good to your daughters too.
You see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
since the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
cleaning up the mess he made. So fathers, be good to your daughters. Daughters will love like you do.
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too
Boys, you can break
You find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without warmth from
A woman’s good, good heart
On behalf of every man looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world
So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too.
Go here to watch the music video
Entry Filed under: fathers, men. Tags: dads, daughters, fathers, john mayer, love, men.
1.
Pearl | January 11, 2009 at 6:56 am
What a beautiful song. “Girls become lovers who turn into mothers” and “fathers, be good to your daughters.” Fathers, mothers, daughters, and sons. Family. Pure family. Our society needs to be working to strengthen this, not redefine it, corrupt it, confuse it. Thanks Pomegranate Apple. Truly. Now that I’m done smooching my husband in gratitude as a result of your last post, I think I’ll go thank the Lord for his tenderness with our kids.
2.
journalista chronicle | January 11, 2009 at 11:53 am
I love this song. I’ve heard it before but didn’t realize what it was about. Thanks Ruby!!!! John Mayer gets points for this one
3.
rubyeliot | January 12, 2009 at 4:24 am
This is the saddest part for me:
Boys, you can break
You find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
4.
Jesurgislac | January 15, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Shouldn’t parents be good to their children just because?
And, after all, there are lots of reasons why a person might not love John Mayer…
Maybe John is telling himself “This girl doesn’t love me because she has issues with her dad” – but maybe the girl doesn’t love him because she can’t stand his BO, or his habit of making up songs about their personal life, or because she hates tattoos…. or just because. It seems to be the hardest thing for some people to learn, that just because you fall in love iwith another person, they might not ever love you back.
5.
rubyeliot | January 16, 2009 at 12:25 am
J.slac. It’s nice to see you having such a sense of humor! Kids need a mom and a dad for a reason. I’ve told you before that it is not just about who takes out the trash and who cooks dinner. Children learn from the different genders. John Mayer points out in this song that some women cannot fully love a man because they were not sufficiently loved by their father. Are you saying this is wrong?
6.
jesurgislac | January 16, 2009 at 1:38 pm
John Mayer points out in this song that some women cannot fully love a man because they were not sufficiently loved by their father. Are you saying this is wrong?
There are nearly seven billion people in the world. Over half of them are women. Given three and a half billion people. I would guess that any situation a person can conceive of, is probably true of at least some of them. So, yeah: I think it’s possible that some women have been so screwed up by their relationship with their father that they cannot ever trust/love a man.
But, I also think that it’s much easier for a person who discovers that someone they’re in love with doesn’t love them back, to blame someone else for this – much easier for a man to blame a woman’s father than to consider “Hey, what am I doing, what kind of person am I, that she doesn’t love me?”
After all: I’ve never fallen in love with a man in my life. But I have great (and mutual) respect for and affection for my dad. (He taught me how to make bread, took me on anti-nuclear demos, read aloud to me,infected me with a love for Jane Austen’s writing that has stuck with me all my life, and from him I inherited my verbal acuity, my need to feed people, and a lot of what I’ve ever learned about how to protect and help people.) If a girl needs to have a good and enduring relationship with her father in order to be able to fall in love with a man, well, I had that and I have it – but, I’m a lesbian: some of my best friends are men, but I fall in love with women.
7.
rubyeliot | January 16, 2009 at 8:08 pm
J.Slac, thank you for your beautiful description of your father. He sounds like a pretty rad dad.
My post about the song was not intended to the address the causes of lesbianism.
The post was intended to address the problem of some women who cannot fully love because they have issues with their dad.
My intention was to celebrate good dads and their importance. We tell men so often that they aren’t important. Fathers are way too often marginalized. I don’t believe in the marginalization of any parent.
Thank you for sharing about your father.