I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)

This song I wrote back when I was writing the Continuum album. Let's not kid anyone, it's a sexy song. Asking a woman, please, don't get engaged any further, I'm a bad boy, you may want to stay away. Which we all know means this: you may experience some burning in your heart. Side effects of John Mayer include: unpredictability, mood swings, long periods of time without phone calls. This song is basically medical indications of dating me, in a song.

I mean there is a "I Don't Trust Myself With Loving You" Part Two. I don't know if you remember this. There's another: [singing] "how wrong, you were, about me." I did that horribly out of tune, I changed keys in the middle. And it was just a kick. We would mute stuff.

There was a little bit of "Your Body is a Wonderland" that helped me write "I Don't Trust Myself With Loving You." Because as I began once again to write a sort of sexy, slow R&B-style ballad, I thought: I cannot do this again and go into the "here are the ways in which I want to love on you" lyrics. And so I decided I would do the exact opposite, and that I would actually tell you why you should probably go elsewhere. I would later go on to sort of do exactly that! If nothing else, I'm a prophet of my own behavior.

Here's why, if you're a songwriter, you should just write what you think no matter what. Against the wave of your own criticism. In I Don't Trust Myself With Loving You, there's a lyric in there that I think is a cop out. And no one has ever pointed it out. And that's what I want songwriters to understand. No one is as hard on oneself as the writer. In the bridge, I sing, "who do you love? Me or the thought of me?" That's been said before a billion times. And somehow or another, I have gotten away with having it in this tune. And no one said, that's a little cliche. I think it's a little cliche. But the point is, once it goes in a song, and people start digging that song, it proves that all the little thoughts you had about why you might not want to write it, are worthless. So you might as well write it. It's I Don't Trust Myself With Loving You, on Life with John Mayer.