With the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), all eyes are on John Mayer. The singer and guitarist posted a series of photos on Instagram on Thursday – just hours before the album was released – that featured him along with the rest of the band Dead and Company at one of their recent shows in Boulder, Colorado. While promoting the album, he ended the collage with a series of drones spelling out “please be kind” in the night sky. Swifties, who have long believed Taylor Swift wrote Speak Now tracks such as “Dear John” about her brief relationship with Mayer while he was 32 and she was 19, have picked up on the message. Mayer’s message, if it was intentional, coincides with Swift’s remarks while performing “Dear John” at a recent stop of her blockbuster Eras Tour. In an appeal to fans, she asked them not to attack Mayer.
“I was hoping to ask you, that as we lead up to this album, I would love for that kindness and that gentleness to extend onto our internet activities. Right?” Swift said on stage in Minneapolis last month. “So what I’m trying to say is, I’m putting this album out because I want to own my music and I believe that [those] who have the desire to own their music should be able to. That’s why I’m putting out this album. “I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except for the songs I wrote,” Swift said. “So what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m not putting this album out so that you should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 million years ago.”
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Swift and Mayer have not confirmed their relationship but are believed to have dated around 2009. In the track “Dear John,” Swift sings, “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with? The girl in the dress, cried the whole way home, I should’ve known. And you’ll add my name to your long list of traitors who don’t understand, and I’ll look back and regret how I ignored when they said: ‘Run as fast as you can.’” Mayer’s 2013 song “Paper Doll,” is believed to have been inspired by “Dear John.” Upon the release of Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) album in 2021, Swift’s devoted fans proceeded relentlessly to harass the singer’s ex-boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal on his social media accounts. Even fellow ex Taylor Lautner said he was “praying for John” in advance of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).
