On the Fast Track of Life

I went with my wife Jenni to see John Mayer at the O2 in London recently. Jenni would admit to being a bit of a John superfan, and she introduced me to his music the first time we met over ten years ago. Although I can’t really claim superfan status, I love to go and see John play live whenever he tours.

This time out it was his SOLO Tour, which meant he didn’t have a backing band. It was just John, his guitars and a microphone. You know someone’s talented when they can take on something so creatively challenging and manage to hold the attention of twenty thousand people.

One of John Mayer’s songs is called Stop This Train, and the lyrics capture a feeling I can certainly relate to at times (I’m sure many of you can too). Here are some words taken from that song:

It (thankfully) doesn’t taken a genius to understand what he’s saying here. The speed that life moves can be overwhelming at times. I’m sure we’ve all experienced a desire to slow down ‘the train’.

Later in the song he searches for some wisdom from his father:

I found a YouTube video recently of John performing Stop This Train during his SOLO tour. Find it towards the bottom of this Newsletter if you want to watch it!

Towards the end of the performance he talks about his feelings when he wrote the song and how he feels on the subject now. His father’s words have clearly stuck with him.

I’m going to paraphrase what he said because I loved it:

It’s hard when you get to your late twenties (the age John was when he wrote the song) because you start to lose touch with your memories. That visceral connection you have with your memories starts to fade.

You’ll always want to stop this train in some sense, but the older you get, the less you kick and scream about wanting to go backwards.

If you stay on the train long enough, eventually you start to except things. You except the train can’t go backwards.

Instead of longing to get off, you say to the universe…

Show me everything.

Show me beauty, joy, glory, goodbyes, friendship.

Universe…

Surprise me.

I don’t know about you, but I find those words comforting and inspiring. It makes me want to experience all that life has to offer. It’s time to stop looking for a way off the train, and instead take a seat and enjoy the ride.

Thanks as always for reading. And, a big thanks to my John Mayer superfan wife Jenni for introducing me to her favourite musician all those years ago.

-Peter