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Taylor Swift · S4 E2
Dear John
The song John Mayer called "cheap songwriting." The age gap. What it cost her to write it and what it cost him that she did.
On October 25, 2010, Speak Now drops, and track five opens with a guitar pattern that sounds exactly like John Mayer. He finds out the song is about him the same way everyone else does: by pressing play.
"I Knew You Were Trouble" -- Taylor Swift, official music video (2012). Taylor falls for someone who destroys everything he touches, and the video replays the relationship as a fever dream of regret. She wrote "Dear John" while still processing the damage. Two years later, this song is the same lesson learned harder, louder, and with the benefit of hindsight.
I Knew You Were Trouble
"I Knew You Were Trouble" is produced by Max Martin and Shellback, the Swedish team Taylor begins working with on Red. The dubstep-influenced drop in the chorus is unlike anything she has released before: a controlled demolition of her country sound. Listen for the moment the beat drops in the chorus. The production literally collapses, mimicking the emotional free fall Taylor is describing. "Dear John" puts the damage into words. "I Knew You Were Trouble" puts it into sound design, and you feel it in your body before the lyric even registers.
The Age Gap
Taylor is nineteen when the relationship with John Mayer begins. He is thirty-two, a Grammy-winning guitarist with a reputation for public breakups and for dating younger women. The power imbalance is the subtext of every lyric she writes about it.
TAP TO REVEAL: What do the hidden letters in "Dear John" spell?
“I never got an e-mail. I never got a phone call. It made me feel terrible, because I didn't deserve it.”
— John Mayer on "Dear John," Rolling Stone, June 2012
Haunted -- Taylor Swift (Speak Now, 2010)
The most dramatic production on the album: heavy strings, pounding drums, and a vocal that sounds like it was recorded in a collapsing building. If "Dear John" is the letter Taylor writes about the relationship, "Haunted" is the feeling that stays after she sends it.
The title "Dear John" has a double meaning. Beyond being addressed to John Mayer, what does a "Dear John letter" traditionally refer to?
"Dear John" proves Taylor can weaponize a song. But the next track on Speak Now is something she has never attempted: a public apology to Taylor Lautner, admitting she was the one who did the damage.
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