My Mayer lyric listing return - your opinion , Im open :)

[Kolstad]

That's a great comment, Gary!!

Clichés and phrases that "depersonalize" the songs, like you say, are key to understand the "paradigm shift" in lyric writing that came from the mid 90'ies and forth, by at the same time there was an extensive individualization in the western societies.. earlier those exact things was preferred as part of the artistry, to create a admirable distance between the audience and the artist, but after the 2000's the goal is to get as deep and close as you possibly can and remove any distance between audience and artist.

Now if we could write songs where the audience could choose their own lyrics, it would be optimal

[Len911]

"When there is love", dialectually means "Because there is love", with the latter being more universal and the previous more regional.

Verse 1 and 2 says she believes, loves and accepts me for what I am. On theme, clear as a bell, sweet and great beautiful lyrics!

In the chorus, the theme takes a turn in some places without enough explanation, for example, the mountains. If it was explained that the mountains were turned into mole hills because there is love, but because there is love there are going to be mountains (problems, disagreements) takes away the sentiment out of "she believes in me no matter what" that the verses imply. Same thing with "love to fight for", it's implied that her love is already conquered, thus no need to fight for it. And the word "battles", detracts from the theme with no explanation why. Also, maybe the "we can" instead of "we will" take the road less traveled is more befitting because there is no explanation of why it is necessary to take the road less traveled just because there is love.

The verses set us up for the chorus, so you could either move higher in the chorus, or you could change direction and even turn the song into a tragedy, because there is love things get even better, or because there is love things can only get worse.

[crazyhooks]

Thanks everyone,
Been very helpful and a good lesson in identifying the level of a "complete Universal lyric" listing.

[burpo]

The most recent Ustream webcast deals
with "universal lyrics."

It might be worth checking out.