Songoftheday 6/10/24 - This is a call to the colorblind this is an IOU, stranded behind a horizon line try to be something true...

 

 

"Bigger Than My Body" - John Mayer

from the album Heavier Things (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 5

 

Today's song comes from singer/songwriter/guitarist John Mayer, whose debut album Room For Squares had scored a pair of top-40 hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart with "No Such Thing" and the Grammy-winning "Your Body Is A Wonderland". After releasing a live album, Any Given Thursday at the beginning of 2003, which went to #17 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and sold over a million copies, Mayer returned with his second studio release Heavier Things in the fall of that year. The lead single from the record was "Bigger Than My Body", written by John and produced by Jack Joseph Puig. The lyrics see John humbled by his fame, and going through the "imposter syndrome" complex that makes someone who's successful question their worth as compared to their peers. This is all done obliquely, however, and besides the repeated "Yes I'm grounded got my wings clipped" doesn't explore the root of the issue. The production was the light rock that Matchbox Twenty was cornering on the market on, albeit with Mayer's more subdued vocals deadening the tension. The music video tries to go meta, I guess, but ends up a reason to show Mayer's mug again...

"Bigger Than My Body" became Mayer's third single to reach the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in October of 2003. On the radio, the song climbed to #22 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, #4 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 airplay list, and #27 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format. But it's biggest success was at the Adult Album Alternative (or "Triple-A") Rock format, where the song spent five weeks at #1. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in New Zealand (#21) and Australia (#38), and was a minor hit in the United Kingdom at #72. The Heavier Things album, released in September of that year, landed his first #1 on the Billboard 200, going on to spend 98 weeks on the list and selling over three million copies. 

Both Mayer and the Heavier Things album will be back to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's John making an appearance on Australian TV in 2006...

Next up, live in concert the same year in New York City...

and finally, a couple years prior in 2004 on his CMT Crossroads episode with Brad Paisley...

Up tomorrow: Canadian rock's punching bag is back with an undetermined date.