Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
John Mayer Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning | Line by Line Meaning
It's not the storm before the calm
This is the deep and dying breath of
This love that we've been working on
Can't seem to hold you like I want to
So I can feel you in my arms
Nobody's gonna come and save you
We pulled too many false alarms
We're going down
And you can see it too
We're going down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
I was the one you always dreamed of
You were the one I tried to draw
How dare you say it's nothing to me?
Baby, you're the only light I ever saw
I'll make the most of all the sadness
You'll be a bitch because you can
You'll try to hit me, just to hurt me
So you leave me feeling dirty
'Cause you can't understand
We're going down
And you can see it too
We're going down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
Go cry about it, why don't you?
Go cry about it, why don't you?
Go cry about it, why don't you?
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
Burning room
Burning room
Burning room
Burning room
Don't you think we ought to know by now?
Don't you think we should've learned somehow?
Don't you think we ought to know by now?
Don't you think we should've learned somehow?
Don't you think we ought to know by now?
Don't you think we should've learned somehow?
John Mayer's song "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" is a lament about a dying relationship. The lyrics are a profound exploration of the end of a love story. The song begins with an acknowledgment that the end is coming and that it is no small thing: "It's not a silly little moment, It's not the storm before the calm, This is the deep and dying breath of, This love that we've been working on." Mayer knows that they are finished, but still, he struggles to "hold you like I want to, so I can feel you in my arms." It's as though he's trying to prolong the inevitable, to keep her close for just a little while longer.
Mayer's sense of loss and vulnerability is palpable, which he expresses in lines such as "Baby, you're the only light I ever saw" and "You'll try to hit me, just to hurt me, So you leave me feeling dirty, 'Cause you can't understand." The former suggests that Mayer's lover was a beacon in his life, a source of hope and comfort that he is losing, while the latter reveals the bitterness and resentment that often comes with the end of a relationship. It's clear that Mayer is hurting deeply, and he sees no way out of the pain. That's why he repeats the haunting line "My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room" throughout the song. He's trying to capture the sense of two people caught in an inferno, unable to escape the flames or the heat.
Overall, the song is a powerful expression of the complexity and sadness of love in its dying days. It suggests that even when we see the end coming, even when we know that we're doomed, we can't help but try to hold on just a little while longer, to savor the moments that remain before the fire consumes everything.
Line by Line Meaning
It's not a silly little moment
This is not a small, insignificant issue we can brush off.
It's not the storm before the calm
This is not a temporary struggle or obstacle that will eventually lead to peace.
This is the deep and dying breath of
This is the end of our love, and it is slowly fading away.
This love that we've been working on
This love that we have been trying to keep alive with effort and hard work.
Can't seem to hold you like I want to
I can't hold you the way I want to, and I can't feel your warmth and love in my arms.
So I can feel you in my arms
So that I can have you close to me and feel your presence once again.
Nobody's gonna come and save you
No one can help you or save our relationship.
We pulled too many false alarms
We have cried wolf too many times and pretended that everything was okay when it wasn't.
We're going down
Our relationship is falling apart, and we are slowly losing each other.
And you can see it too
You also acknowledge that our relationship is ending and we can't save it.
And you know that we're doomed
You know that our love is ending and it's beyond repair.
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
We are helplessly trying to dance and live in our burning relationship, knowing that it will eventually consume us.
I was the one you always dreamed of
I was the person you always wanted to be with and imagined being with for the rest of your life.
You were the one I tried to draw
You were the person I tried to win over and get close to, but it seems like it's too late now.
How dare you say it's nothing to me?
How could you say that our love meant nothing to you when it clearly did to me?
Baby, you're the only light I ever saw
You were my guiding light and my source of happiness and fulfillment.
I'll make the most of all the sadness
I will try to find positivity and strength even in this dark and painful situation.
You'll be a bitch because you can
You will act cruel and hurtful because you can and because you are in pain.
You'll try to hit me, just to hurt me
You will try to do everything in your power to hurt me and it will only end up making things worse.
So you leave me feeling dirty
Your behavior will leave me feeling wounded, damaged, and vulnerable.
'Cause you can't understand
Because you're unable to see my pain and my love for you, and it makes things even harder.
Go cry about it, why don't you?
You should take some time to reflect on what we had and how it came to this end. Instead of lashing out and hurting me even more, you should take some time to mourn the end of our relationship.
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
We are both trying to survive in a dying relationship and it's taking its toll on both of us.
Burning room
Our love is being consumed by the flames of our relationship.
Don't you think we ought to know by now?
Don't you think we should have figured out what went wrong and why our love is ending by now?
Don't you think we should've learned somehow?
Shouldn't we have tried to fix our relationship before it was too late?
Lyrics © REACH MUSIC PUBLISHING
Written by: John Clayton Mayer
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
1) John Clayton Mayer was born October 16, 1977, in Fairfield, Connecticut, USA, and started playing guitar at 13 after being inspired by a Stevie Ray Vaughan tape his neighbor gave him. In 1998 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he refined his skills and gained a following. Read Full BioThere are two artists with the name John Mayer; American pop singer-songwriter John Clayton Mayer (b. 1977), and Anglo-Indian Composer John Jiddhu Mayer (1930 - 2004) and leader of John Mayer's Indo Jazz Fusions
1) John Clayton Mayer was born October 16, 1977, in Fairfield, Connecticut, USA, and started playing guitar at 13 after being inspired by a Stevie Ray Vaughan tape his neighbor gave him. In 1998 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he refined his skills and gained a following.
In 2003, he won the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for the 2002 single "Your Body Is a Wonderland" from the album Room for Squares.
In February 2005, he was awarded the Song of the Year Grammy for his song Daughters, which he composed while in the shower, from the album Heavier Things. In winning the award, he beat out such contenders as Alicia Keys, and Kanye West. He dedicated this award to his grandmother, Annie Hoffman, who died in May 2004. He also won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, for which Elvis Costello, Prince and Seal were also nominated. In 2007, John won 2 Grammys, one for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, for the song "Waiting On The World To Change," and also Best Pop Vocal Album for his album Continuum.
To date, Mayer has toured with many groups, including Maroon 5, Guster, Counting Crows, The Wallflowers, Teitur, Ben Folds, and Sheryl Crow.
In 2004, Mayer worked with hip hop artist and producer Kanye West, appearing both on Go and Kanye West's Bittersweet (released in the summer of 2007 as an iTunes pre-order bonus track to the album Graduation) and received praise from rap heavyweights like Jay-Z and Nelly. When asked about his ubiquitous presence in the hip hop community, he said, "It's not music out there right now. That's why, to me, hip-hop is where rock used to be."
It was around this time that he began hinting at a change in his musical interests, announcing that he was "closing up shop on acoustic sensitivity." In 2005, he began a string of collaborations with various blues artists, including Buddy Guy, BB King, Eric Clapton and jazz artist John Scofield. He also toured with the legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, which included a show at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.
Although Mayer has maintained a reputation for being a sensitive singer-songwriter, he is also an accomplished guitarist influenced by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Freddie King and B.B. King. In this regard, he has released an album with his band The John Mayer Trio Try!, which features a blues-rock style reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix.
In September 2006, Mayer released his third studio album, Continuum. The album, written and produced exclusively by Mayer (with the help of Steve Jordan from the John Mayer Trio) is a culmination of Mayer's growth as an artist and continues with the blues-rock style that he began to flirt with on Try!.
Also notable is John Mayer's various adaptations in style. He always maintained a blues tone, he introduced a rockier edge. However, in Continuum, he adopts a calmer genre, returning to his previous styles.
On November 17, 2009, Mayer's fourth studio album, Battle Studies, was released and debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart. The album consists of 11 tracks with a total time of 45 minutes. The first single from the album, "Who Says", was released on September 24, 2009 in advance of album, and was followed on October 19 by the single "Heartbreak Warfare" and the single "Half of My Heart" released on June 21, 2010. Despite the album's commercial success, critics were mixed with their praise; while some reviews were glowing, calling it his "most adventurous", others called the album "safe" and noted that "Mayer the singer-songwriter and Mayer the man about town sometimes seem disconnected, like they don't even belong in the same body.
Following his recovery from vocal surgery, Mayer returned to the studio. On June 18, 2013, Mayer announced from his Facebook page that his sixth album, Paradise Valley, would be released on August 13, 2013. On the same day, he released a lyric video for the new album's first single, "Paper Doll", on his YouTube page. The release date was later changed to August 20, 2013. "Who You Love" featuring Katy Perry followed as the album's third single and a music video was released on December 17, 2013 for the song. The album, which also includes a collaboration with Frank Ocean, was met with positive reviews from music critics. Mayer embarked on a tour, his first in three years, in support of Born and Raised and Paradise Valley. The American leg of the tour ran from July to December 2013 with Interscope recording artist Phillip Phillips serving as support act. The tour will visit Australia in April 2014.
2) John Jiddhu Mayer (b. Calcutta, Bengal, British India, October 28, 1930; d. United Kingdom, March 9, 2004) was an Indian composer known primarily for his fusions of jazz with Indian music. He was born into an Anglo-Indian family and, after studying with Phillipe Sandre in Calcutta and Melhi Mehta in Bombay, he won a scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Music in 1952, where he studied comparative music and religion in eastern and western cultures.
He worked as a violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1953-58) and then with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1958-65), but was also composing fusions of Hindustani classical and Western classical forms from 1952 onwards. His Violin Sonata was performed by Yehudi Menuhin in 1955.
In the 1960s he worked extensively with the Jamaican jazz musician Joe Harriott, with whom he formed the group Indo-Jazz Fusions, a ten-piece featuring a jazz quintet and five Indian musicians. The new incarnation of the band, called John Mayer's Indo Jazz Fusions, was revived in the 1990s and continued to play live gigs -- featuring Mayer's son Jonathan Mayer on sitar -- until John Mayer's death.
From 1996 onwards, Mayer, though based in north London, worked part-time as composer-in-residence at the Birmingham Conservatoire where he introduced the BMus Indian music course in 1997.
Albums include Indo-Jazz Fusions I & II, Dhammapada, Etudes & Radha Krishna, and Asian Airs.
Jaayy Stylinson
Lyrics:
It's not a silly little moment
It's not the storm before the calm
This is the deep and dyin' breath of
This love we've been workin' on
Can't seem to hold you like I want to
So I can feel you in my arms
Nobody's gonna come and save you
We pulled too many false alarms
We're goin' down
And you can see it too
We're goin' down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear
We're slow dancing in a burnin' room
I was the one you always dreamed of
You were the one I tried to draw
How dare you say it's nothing to me
Baby, you're the only light I ever saw
I'll make the most of all the sadness
You'll be a bitch because you can
You try to hit me, just hurt me
So you leave me feeling dirty
'Cause you can't understand
We're goin' down
And you can see it too
We're goin' down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear
We're slow dancing in a burnin' room
Go cry about it, why don't you
Go cry about it, why don't you
Go cry about it, why don't you
My dear, we're slow dancin' in a burnin' room
Burnin' room, burnin' room
Don't you think we outta know by now?
Don't you think we shoulda learned somehow?
Don't you think we outta know by now?
Don't you think we shoulda learned somehow?
Don't you think we outta know by now?
Don't you think we shoulda learned somehow?
ozzman1997
Even being a metalhead, I still love this song.
Devon Boes
Yup my favorite guitarist was Randy Rhoades growing up but moved to EVH when I got older both guitarists licks and riffs are bluesy. Randy made blues riffs HEAVY!!!
終わりOwari
Yup, same here
Any F
Same here
John Mayer
@Ethan Morrow Hello
how are you doing?? I want to say a very Big thank you for your love, the likes and support towards my career..I hope you don't stop listening to my music
🎼🎤🎹🎸🎵❤️
Sera Buinidali
@Deicide 1 11120kb0
Quincy Winstead
There is so much symbolism in this song it hurts. This "burning room" he mentions could be a relationship coming to ruin. And these two hopeless people "slow dancing" are each and every one of us in doomed relationships. The fact that they're slow dancing could indicate their hopeless indulgence in the inevitable. The fact is, these two dancers are so invested in each other, they hardly see the room crashing before their very eyes. The blind indulgence, if you will, of relationships allows us to look past the burning rooms of our own lives. And he mentions the very humanity of it; "Don't you think we oughta know by now?". Like why haven't any of us learned yet. "This is the deep and dying breath...". It's so relatable it makes you wonder if John Mayer has been in love before (of course he has).
Hunter Powers
Beautiful
Mr. AUTHENTIC
Are you high during this rant ?
Betsy The Bumpside
Bro holy shit.