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Live in Oslo, Norway 2019

Concert at Oslo Spektrum

This is a song from the Paradise Valley album. [Audience cheers] Oh, thank you! Tell the rest of them. [Laughs] I'm sure they'd love to hear about it. It's one of my favorite songs. Every once in a while I write one -- it's always the ones that don't go all the way that become my favorite. I wonder if it's because it didn't go all the way, that it's my favorite. Or, the things that make me like it, also make it not a mainstream thing. I don't know.

But I like this song because it's not saying goodbye. It's saying, I will wait forever for you to become cool. [Laughs] And I don't know whether that's a smart thing or not a smart thing, but the great thing about songs is, you don't have to make that determination. You just feel it. And this is about someone who's just sitting and waiting for someone to get cool. Because they know that when they do get cool, it'll be lovely. The number of times that has worked for me in my life remains zero. [Laughter] But we can still sing about it. It's called "Waiting On the Day."

[Plays "Waiting on the Day"]

[...]

[Plays "Go Easy On Me"]

That song was written years ago when I was making the Born and Raised record. I never had my college years, so I fit my college years in between my fourth and my fifth record. What do I mean by "college years?" I would go sit at a bar and work my problems out. You forget that sometimes, you can work your problems out. At a bar. Alone. And I'd just be sitting there, drinking, working my problems out. And someone would come up and try to hurt my feelings just to do it. Cause at the time, I think there was something about me that was inviting people to try to hurt my feelings. I was a little cocky when I was younger. So people would see me at the bar, and they'd go "oh my fuckin'..." But they didn't know that I was hurting inside, and I would sit there, and I was just working that stuff out. And so that song is my going like this: [softly] "I don't know. I don't -- I don't know. I don't know." [Snarling voice] "So you're John Mayer." "Yeah." "Bet you think you're, like, cool." "Not right now."

And that whole song is me saying, like, [weakly] "please leave me alone. I just want to sit here in peace."