Daughters is the 3rd single off Heavier Things, despite the fact that John refused to have it as a single, and fought with his record label to not release it. It became John's second biggest hit and went on to win song of the year at the 2005 Grammy's.
Facts About The Song
• In the music video, the woman is Australian model Gemma Ward.
• John has stated that he wrote Daughters naked
What John has to say about it:
"Daughters is a song that I wrote on an acoustic guitar in a hotel room, and it was a very simple statement. It was written universally to all fathers by way of one girl, and that's important because I don't want people to think it's preaching. I don't like the idea of writing a song that says, 'Now everybody listen to what I gotta tell you.' But it's global out of one singular kind of pain." (on the Daughters music video shoot)
"I think that song is perfect. I've written a lot of bad songs, I've written a lot of songs that have good parts, that's a perfect song. It's not my favorite song, but as a tune, as a craft, it's perfect because musically, execution-wise, it somehow toes the line and never falls into cheese. It's believable the whole way.
"It's such a pure feeling and it's the realest thing I've ever felt in a song...and I think people pick up on that."
"'Daughters' is the most autobiographical song I've ever written, It's about a girl that I fell absolutely in love with, but who was fundamentally kind of broken emotionally. I had never encountered that before. As much as I tried and as much metaphorical blood I had on my hands from trying to perform so many emotional surgeries and constantly breaking my own heart with it eventually you realize it's not about her anymore. I remember I was like 'I hate your dad. I hate whatever happened to you that really kind of paralyzed you"
"I was on the road trying constantly to get the situation to work because if I could get it to work, I knew I'd be with it forever. But it was like trying to Scotch tape a brick to a wall. It's just not going to happen. It's a guy in a moment of desperation trying to figure out how to make something work and pointing fingers where he shouldn't point fingers."
"That song came from a relationship I had with a girl...you know there are people you meet and they have so, there together in so many ways but the one small way that in which they aren't together is prohibited for everything else. In this case it was someone who's past with there father was really like, I think the defining characteristic of the relationship that I was having. Its such a helpless feeling, cause its not the girl's fault, its not her fault, you know, its like god you know everything about them, everything with the actual experience is so great, except that one thing. Getting along in this relationship was like a digital camera with no card in it, so you can see through it just fine, and it was beautiful, and the screen was nice, except it wouldn't....record. You couldn't get to the next day and show the picture to anybody, it was a daily kinda of synthesis of what normal is in a relationship. And its so helpless" - (soundstage)
"I absolutely did not want that as a single. A single becomes your quarterback for your record. Putting the ball in the hands of 'Daughters' and saying, Push this record? It just seems pandering.'' The success of Heavier Things turned Mayer into his generation's writer of ''sensitive'' songs. This pleased just about everyone — except the artist himself. ''I got pigeonholed. Everybody [was going], 'You're doing good,' but I felt terrible. They had the wrong man. So I had to jam the door open".
About the video
"I felt like getting out of the way of the tune. Anybody who thinks there should be a story for this song, I don't think that could ever be a success. The song is such a vivid story that the video for me is more like just playing the song. The way that [director] Mario Sorrenti interpreted it is very interesting. It's a '70s/late '60s beatnik kind of thing that I wanted to go after 'cause the song runs the risk of being perceived as kind of a sensitive-singer song, but I think there's a lot more involved in the tunes that I write. Sometimes they get [tagged] as 'strummy strum strum strummy strum strum.' But this has a real sense of urgency, and it's really vibrant."