Taylor Swift’s Ex-Boyfriend Criticized Her ‘Cheap Songwriting’

Everyone knows that Taylor Swift writes her own songs — including a former boyfriend who criticized her “cheap songwriting.” He took issue with one of her tracks in particular. He also refused to talk about one eyebrow-raising line from that tune.

A huge rock star was briefly Taylor Swift’s boyfriend

John Mayer is a rock ‘n’ roll singer most known for his hits “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” “Daughters,” “Say,” and “Waiting on the World to Change,” and his cover of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” According to The Independent, Swift dated Mayer from December 2009 to February 2010, when she was 19 and he was 31. Afterward, Swift released a track called “Dear John.” In the track, Swift decries a man for cheating and romancing her when she was too young. Fans tend to think that “Dear John” is an attack on Mayer.

During a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, Mayer seemed to confirm that “Dear John” is about him while dismissing it on an artistic level. “I will say as a songwriter that I think it’s kind of cheap songwriting,” he said. “I know she’s the biggest thing in the world, and I’m not trying to sink anybody’s ship, but I think it’s abusing your talent to rub your hands together and go, ‘Wait till he gets a load of this!’ That’s bullsh**.”

Mayer’s comments are bizarre. So many great songwriters have done great work because they wanted to channel their feelings about their exes into a song. Maybe the is more interested in writing about “bubblegum tongues,” but Swift’s breakup tunes follow a classic songwriting pattern.

John Mayer doesn’t feel that he was a bad boyfriend to Taylor Swift

In addition, the “Your Body Is a Wonderland” star decried “Dear John” on a moral level. “It made me feel terrible,” Mayer said. “Because I didn’t deserve it. I’m pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do.”

The song took Mayer by surprise. “I never got an e-mail,” he said. “I never got a phone call. I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I’d already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you’ve ever been, someone kicked you even lower?” Mayer refused to address the line about the song that says it’s wrong for older men to get involved with younger women. He decided to shake it off.

How ‘Dear John’ eventually became a hit

“Dear John” was not one of Swift’s big hits. The original version of the song did not charted at No. 54 for a week on the Billboard Hot 100. Its parent album, Speak Now, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for six weeks. That record lasted on the chart for 193 weeks.

When Swift started releasing “Taylor’s Versions” of her albums, “Dear John” was briefly a hit. “Dear John (Taylor’s Version)” peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a single week. Meanwhile, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) peaked at No. 1 for two of its 85 weeks on the Billboard 200.

“Dear John” eventually became a minor hit but I can’t imagine Mayer will blast it in his car anytime soon.