[39:14]
Bob Saget: And then you were kind enough to give me a song called "Say." No, I'm sorry, you gave me "Who Says." I just love "Say." I don't know why, but they are are two songs that make me cry a bit.
John Mayer: Aw, thank you. I love that song.
BS: "Who Says," right?
JM: Yeah, I love that song. I thought that song was gonna be huge. The day I wrote it and listened back to it I couldn't stop listening back to it, I couldn't believe I owned it. Oh my god, I own this now. And I drove across town the next day to play it for a friend. Listen to this song. Oh my god, listen to this song. I said, I'm gonna play this song around the world. This song is gonna take me around the world. And it didn't. But—
BS: I thought it did. Because it's an anthem.
JM: So it didn't until it did. Meaning—and this is a different conversation—but the scope of view that people have for the success or lack thereof of something that's released, whether it's a Netflix special or a movie or a song, is relegated to just the release week and the commercial moment.
BS: And where people are at in their heads.
JM: For that month. So forget about release month. I learned to forget about release month. Now more than ever. Where does the song end up? And I remember I went on tour, this time last year I was in like Indonesia. And I was playing that song and that song was being sung back to me as if it was the biggest hit on the radio that ever existed. And I remember being like, I was right that this song was special. It just didn't—the read-out didn't come until ten years later.
BS: Yeah I've had that with everything I've ever done.
JM: But you learn to trust that.
[break]
[43:36]
BS: And I was kind of there with you. We were at dinner when you were running after, I think it was Phil Lesh, wasn't it?
JM: Yeah, oh at Craig's, yeah.
BS: And you were saying, Hey can we put this together again? I'd love to see if the Dead can get back. He was reluctant.
JM: Well I told him—maybe I just connected with him and then he asked me to come up and play with him at his place in San Francisco. But the Phil thing is separate from Dead & Company. Phil just didn't want to go back out with the band.
BS: But that was in the back of your mind to include him in there as well, correct?
JM: Well, you have kids. So you talk about who you wish you met or what you would have done but then you wouldn't have had the kids you had? And if Phil had come before I'd had met Oteil, who plays bass in the band, I would have thought that was the greatest thing in the world. But it's a funny trade off because Oteil is so great in this band. It's hard, cause of course Phil would make it closer, genetically, to the Grateful Dead. But Oteil is such a great addition, and I think modernizes it in a certain way. I would have been happy either way but, I'm really really happy with the way the band is.
And it's tough to cancel this tour. We canceled the tour this week.
[...]
[47:44]
BS: I do think I had it. Do you think you had it, by the way?
JM: Yeah, I think I had it.
BS: You had a flu that just knocked you on your ass.
JM: But I think I had it in December. So I don't know if that makes sense. I don't want to be one of these guys who says he thinks he had it. But I sure would like to take an antibody test.
BS: Yeah, we'll find out. Yeah, I want to get it.
[...]