Skip to main content

John Mayer's Secret to Writing Catchy Song Lyrics

John Mayer's Secret to Writing Catchy Song Lyrics

by Kapa Freeman 

John Mayer's Secret to Writing Catchy Song Lyrics

Why are John Mayer's song lyrics so easy to remember? It comes down to human psychology. I am notoriously bad at remembering song lyrics, except for John Mayer's Songs.
Other artists may write a song I remember here or there, but John Mayer does it consistently.

Why?

I discovered the reason when I was working full-time as a teacher. Teachers can always tell when they're losing students. When those eyes start to glaze over, when that one eyebrow raises in confusion and someone yells out... "I don't get it!" 

I got those a lot when I first started teaching. Talking to other teachers, I soon discovered why. I was giving too much information at once. I would vomit these elaborate explanations, thinking that more information would help clear things up... But they just got confused.

Talking to my teachers reminded me of lessons I'd learned while getting my teaching degree: 
"People remember info best in small chunks."

That's why John Mayer's songs are so easy to remember! He doesn't write song lyrics like an essay. He doesn't have a whole sentence on each line. Sometimes he only has one sentence that he split up over several lines.

"Daughters" is a perfect example:

"I...
know a girl....
who put the color...
inside my world...."
The longest line was four words...

No wonder they're so easy to remember! So if you want your songs to be more memorable, give your listeners less to remember. Of course that's not the only thing that makes John Mayer's lyrics memorable.

Actually, there are more factors that make John Mayer's lyrics  so easy to connect to. And guess what they all come down to? Human psychology! 

And that's good news, because that means that they will work in your songs too. But this is just part of what makes a song catchy. This will give you a great start, but there are other ingredients you need in your lyrics and in your melodies... 


Check out all of the posts related to Music Marketing: 




Kapa Freeman is the Founder and Songwriting Coach of The Intentional Songwriter, whose goal is to help musicians become publisher-ready songwriters so they can access songwriter-only income streams that pay more money for less of their time.

After taking an "assembly line approach" to songwriting, Kepa added consistency to his songwriting and went from song rejections to publishing deals over the course of a year. Now he uses this same approach to help musicians go from beginning to publisher-ready songwriters in a matter of weeks.

https://www.prosongsonpurpose.com/

Tags:

Popular posts

"He Knew" by Krystal Dawn Land: The Cost Christ Chose Before the Cradle

Jesus knew everything, and He came anyway! Let’s go back to the birth of Jesus, a newborn lying in the manger, part of a larger plan and fully aware of where His path would end before He came to earth. Krystal Dawn Land’s song, “He Knew”, opens with a question that stops you cold, especially if you consider how you would respond: “What if He knew? What if He saw? What if He knew the pain He’d face to give it all?” This isn’t idle speculation. The song walks through the full arc of Jesus’ story, “from the cradle to the cross” , and insists that nothing that happened caught Him off guard. He saw the betrayal coming. He saw the doubt, the walking away, “some would not believe, some would walk away.” And still, as Krystal sings, “He did… He knew all along. He still came… to right every wrong.” That kind of foreknowledge changes how we read Isaiah 53:3–5, where the prophet describes the Messiah as “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows.” Jesus wasn’t ambushed by suffering. He wal...
More >>

"What A Savior" by Will & Jacinta Ellis and Crossing Life Worship: Never Growing Numb to Grace

Have you ever grown numb to a miracle?  “What A Savior” by Will & Jacinta Ellis and Crossing Life Worship began as a chorus in a co-write, before it took on a life of its own. Will & Jacinta wanted something rich and almost hymn-like, a bold declaration of who Jesus is — not a tired restatement, but a fresh look. They never wanted to grow “used to” what Jesus accomplished, so they wrote about holding on to Him in every season, regardless of whether it’s calm or chaotic.  The opening lines start with the redemption through Jesus’ blood: “The precious fount, that cleansing flow, the Son of God poured out for all.” That’s the blood that Jesus spilled for you. The song moves from the cleansing through His blood to the result: “The debt I owed and all sin’s claims were buried with You in the grave.” Your debt. Buried. Gone.  Here’s where it gets even more personal. Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” ...
More >>

"Hallelujah Anyway" by Zach Garrett: Praise That Doesn't Wait for the Storm to Pass

What if worship doesn’t require having answers? Storm clouds hide the stars. The road stretches on with no map and no end in sight. That’s the world Zach Garrett describes in the opening lines of “Hallelujah Anyway,” and if you’ve walked through a season of loss or confusion, you already recognize the setting. Zach wrote this song from inside real darkness, in his case, a stretch of loss, hurt, and unanswered questions that didn’t resolve on his timeline. Zach’s message is that we don’t need to wait for clarity before we choose to worship. Like Zach, we may need to make that choice daily, sometimes hourly, possibly even through gritted teeth. The bridge describes a common misconception: “I used to think that faith meant having all the answers, that doubt was just a sign I wasn’t strong enough to stand.” How many of us carry that same lie? We assume that real faith looks certain, steady, unshaken. We get confused when it isn’t! Zach flips the definition of faith: “Maybe trusting You me...
More >>