Changing

Several months into working at Capitol, in December 2014, the key melodic idea for “Changing” came to Mayer in a flash. “I was sitting in that room,” he says, gesturing to one of the smaller enclaves adjacent to the main studio, “just off trying to find something. And out of nowhere, I start singing, ‘I am not done changing, out on the run changing, I may be old and I may be young, but I am not done changing.’ It’s 30 seconds long and it was a jingle and I went, ‘Oh shit, how do I make this a song?,’ because it was so rounded off and circular already. It sounds simple, but it took forever.” Mayer calls the song “the spiritual centerpiece of the album.”

what song on this record was the most difficult to write?

Believe it or not, Changing took forever. Verses were so self-resolving it was hard to figure out a larger arrangement. Very asymmetrical.