Room for Squares.
I was going to Nashville with my boyfriend for a quick trip to see my family, and we split the drive up — one of us driving from Atlanta to Chattanooga, the other from Chattanooga to Nashville. When it was my turn to drive (the second leg), my boyfriend went to sleep. I wanted something that I could belt while surrounded by the mountains that make up most of that two-hour ride. I started with Spotify’s playlist “self care,” which is mostly like wispy White people music but had the right energy maybe for a long scenic car ride. This Taylor Swift song came on that I like (“august”), and I kept peeking at my boyfriend to see if he was still sleeping because it felt like it destabilized my pro-Black, pro-political ego to be (not just listening to! but) singing along with Taylor Swift. He woke up, and I fervently denied that I liked the song, but because he is my boyfriend and because I spend so much time with him, he both knew that I liked it and didn’t care. Maybe with everyone we are close to, we are allowed to (or should be allowed to) let a host of non-complimentary parts exist inside of us. We can believe that a lot of White music is not for us and also believe that this song—sometimes this whole artist—is an exception. We can think about race constantly and also, at times, forget about it.
My boyfriend went back to sleep and I found myself listening to John Mayer’s Room for Squares, an album I was obsessed with in college (that I used to have on CD!). I don’t know what John Mayer’s politics are or what he’s up to these days, but I loved that album. It was before he was a cool guy, before he knew the pull he’d have with people, before he became mysterious. Room for Squares is an earnest album filled with quirky timing and nerdy word play, and when I was seventeen, eighteen, I couldn’t stop listening to it. It was almost ten years after it came out that I found it, and now it had been another ten years since I’d really listened to it. Riding down the highway, listening to this album, I found that I not only still loved it, but understood it a bit more.
Maybe understanding it isn’t that big of an accomplishment because in a way the messages of the songs are simple. “Great Indoors” is about not staying inside watching TV all day, and if you do, making the most of it. “3x5” is also about wanting to be out and about, this time with someone else, as opposed to just showing them printed pictures of your adventures after the fact. “Not Myself” (my favorite) is about feeling unlike yourself and wanting to know you’ll still be loved while you find your way back. The meaning of the songs isn’t especially complex or profound, but the simplicity is what makes them so comforting. The songs are a reminder that everything doesn’t have to be overly complicated, that sometimes what you’re yearning for, if you sit with it long enough, isn’t so hard to name.
When I was a teenager, first starting college, the simplicity was a big part of what attracted me to album. My moody musings that seemed impossible to communicate and completely original to me were, in fact, neither. They could be put to words, to music. And now, years later, I’ve found that the relatability of the songs still hits me. I can belt “3x5” in the car and still think, Yeah, I want you with me while I go on this adventure. I don’t want to just tell you about it afterward. I can croon “Not Myself” misty-eyed and think, Yeah, if I disappear for a minute, if I lose touch with myself, just hold on as I make my way back. I can put on a concert for myself and for my sleeping boyfriend, and if it’s a deep cut into White culture, who cares?
Image: John Mayer / Columbia Records
