In starting this series, I wanted the first entry to be strong. Not just strong in the sense of good fundamental writing, but thought-provoking, allegorical, and something people could relate to. After starting, stopping, deleting, and restarting multiple times, it dawned on me: not everything has to be overly complex. Sometimes things just are what they are.

Growing up is scary. Everyone does it, but no matter someone’s age or how “together” they may seem to be, the bridge into adulthood is neverending. No matter how old a person is, there is always an older version of themselves in the future. That bridge to get there may be covered in fog, but we all know the ultimate destination. It is the journey that lends itself to the uncertainty, the fear, and the excitement.

John Mayer wrote about this foggy bridge into adulthood in “Stop This Train” off of his magnificent album Continuum. Life was a train, his guitar was the conductor, and his lyrics were the engine, forcing himself and his listeners to penetrate the fog with hesitancy, but not in solitude.

The first verse sees Mayer refusing to see the blending of the world. “No I’m not color blind/ I know the world is black and white”. There is good and there is bad in the world. There is life and there is death. Things happen or they do not. To Mayer, there is no middle ground, at least not any that he will acknowledge. Rather, he refuses to accept that there is a middle ground, while ultimately knowing there is no such thing as black and white in life and in the world.

This refusal to accept things as they are is a common theme in the song, but is also met by a counter force in different forms. The song displays a back and forth between innocence and experience. It is an internal dialogue many of us have, questioning where the time went, why things are changing, and how we got here. With this conflict, Mayer admits he does have an open mind, but that the more he thinks on these things, the more difficult it is to grapple with them. “I try to keep an open mind/ But, I just can’t sleep on this tonight.” Those who dare to partake in this dialogue, to question their own lives, directions, and mortalities, will not rest. The concept of one’s life is as expansive as the universe. While it is not infinite, the uncertainty of one’s own mortality and one’s own future is equitable to the vastness of space. The unknown is terrifying. Thinking too hard on it takes a toll.

The chorus of the song is the vocal manifestation of that toll. A young man letting out a cry for life to stop because it is all going by too fast. “Stop this train/ I want to get off and go home again/ I can’t take the speed it’s moving in”. It is straightforward and honest. Life is moving too fast for Mayer, he wants to go back home, it is all just moving too fast. As a young adult looking back on his life, “home” most closely aligns with childhood. Mayer does not just want the train to stop because of its speed, but how complex life has become. The innocence of childhood is a simplicity we all long for. The world is bigger, everything is possible, and there are minimal responsibilities or pressures.

Home is where we all desire to be, but we can all choose our own roots. Home is what we make it and what we define it. In this turmoil, Mayer sets up his home as his childhood, thinking back on that innocence, not necessarily to return permanently, but to experience it just one more time. Those childhood experiences can never be replicated as an adult. Most joy stemming from youthful memories is temporary or fleeting. As we grow older, we have to find new ways in which to truly feel joy. The innocence is fleeting. Mayer even alludes to this in the closing lines of the chorus. “I know I can’t/ But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?” 

There is admission that he cannot take the speed of life, that he cannot stop this train, but then a plea for help. The language and the use of the word “honestly” almost minimizes the opening lines of the chorus, like Mayer was passing off his lines of stopping the train and life moving too fast as a joke. In a way, that is what we do in life. When we ask each other how we are doing, many of us joke about barely making it, or how difficult life is, only to quickly pass by and move along. We minimize our own fears and concerns. Mayer does here, too, but gives an earnest plea, breaking the social construct we have built in our society, and saying that he actually, truly wants this train to stop. 

The second verse is honest, innocent, and simple: Mayer does not want to do life without his parents. It is a heartfelt notion that is synonymous with life. As we grow older, so do our parents, our siblings, our friends, our teachers, our role models. Time stops for no one, no matter how much we beg the train to stop. It is a scary feeling and one that we cannot escape, but also one that we have difficulty accepting.

Mayer begins, simply, like a child who needs his parents to explain things to him: “Don’t know how else to say it/ Don’t want to see my parents go.” Sometimes life does not need a metaphor. The more difficult things to convey, the more simply they need to be put, and what is more difficult to convey than the fear of a loss that has not yet happened but that is inevitable? There is not a metaphor that could properly reflect that emotion. So Mayer did not try. He does not want to see his parents go. He is not ready to live without his parents. Sometimes things just are what they are.

Are any of us really, though? Parents never stop loving their children. There is always time for more lessons, more moments, more emotions. Children never stop looking up to their parents. Even as faults are exposed and chinks in the armor become apparent with age, we accept our parents as imperfect regardless. Those who cannot may not have been blessed with the type of parents worthy of a child’s love.

Mayer was in his late 20s when he released Continuum. 28 years old to be exact. I sit here at 29 years old feeling the same sense of fear, helplessness, and dread that Mayer did writing “Stop This Train”. “One generation’s length away/ From fighting life out on my own.” Life is a battle every single day. Things go wrong. We make mistakes. We struggle. We feel less than. Those of us who are lucky enough have parents to turn to in those moments to fight alongside us. When our parents go, the fight is down to us.

In the second chorus, though the words are the same, there is an emphasis behind them. The more Mayer ponders life, innocence, death, age, the more he wants the train to stop. Yet it does no good. “I know I can’t/ But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?”

The third verse opens with one of the most honest lines in modern pop music. “So scared of getting older/ I’m only good at being young.” There is fear in the unknown, and there is a whole lot of unknown about growing older. We all question what we are doing with our lives and wonder if we can handle the next step.

I vividly remember riding in the car with my friend Garrett and his mom the summer before high school. We were terrified at the prospect of starting Catholic High School in just a few months. A school known for strict discipline, rigorous academics, no air conditioning, and complete intimidation. Garrett’s mom provided one of the more eloquent ways of squashing fear, and I still use it to this day.

She said, “Garrett’s dad made it through, so y’all will be fine.” Just like that. If someone else could do it, why could we not? Not every fear is as small as a freshman year of high school, though. There is real fear with becoming a parent, with providing for a family, buying a house, maintaining relationships, failing, and any number of other things. Fear is real, and most of it comes from the next step that we have yet to do.

We are only good at being young because we have not experienced growing old. Mayer acknowledges this, and in his fear he tries to rationalize how no matter what age he is, he is still young. “So I play the numbers game/ To find a way to say that life has just begun.” At 28 years old, his age at this album’s release, Mayer could easily justify being young. He was not even 30 yet, how could he be old? But it is not about young versus old, but rather it is about whether life has begun or has begun to end. Mayer is looking for a way to say that he has time. Time for what does not matter, but just finding ways to say that he generally has time for anything goes a long way in quenching the fear of growing old, of living without parents, and of not being ready for any of it. Any trick we can play on ourselves to convince us that we have more time is worthy. The difficult part is getting ourselves to buy our own trick.

Mayer takes the bridge of the song to a higher key, coinciding with the higher authority he speaks to in the lyrics. He gets advice from his dad. The man he is so scared to lose, one of the focal points of the song, gets the chance to provide insight into growing older. That insight turned Mayer’s fears and worries on their heads. “Had a talk with my old man/ Said, ‘Help  me understand.’/ He said, ‘Turn sixty-eight, you’ll renegotiate’.” Age, this thing that Mayer fears so much, will be the thing that causes him not to be afraid.

In the chorus after the bridge, Mayer’s father continues speaking, still at an elevated key as an authority. “‘Don’t stop this train/ Don’t, for a minute, change the place you’re in/ And don’t think I couldn’t ever understand/ I tried my hand/ John, honestly, we’ll never stop this train’.” The words come from a place of love, of reassurance, and of comfort, but they are also honest. Mayer’s father suggests in the song that he is right where he is supposed to be. Young people tend to fall into two camps: those who cannot wait to grow up and those who fear it. “Stop This Train” focuses on the latter, but the former is present in reality outside the confines of these lyrics. The message from Mayer’s father would be the same in either instance. Do not rush the train, do not slow the train, because neither would do any good. We are right where we are supposed to be.

Further, Mayer’s father does not dismiss his son’s concerns. Instead, he says he understands. He insinuates that he, too, tried to stop the train of life, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not, either. He tells Mayer, not in a defeated tone, but in one of acceptance, that we will never stop this train. It is not to be done. The train of life knows only one speed, and we cannot speed it up or slow it down, no matter how hard we try.

The second bridge leans into acceptance, but acknowledges that even in acceptance there will be sorrow. 

“Once in a while, when it’s good

It’ll feel like it should

And they’re all still around

And they’re still safe and sound

And you don’t miss a thing

‘Til you cry when you’re driving away in the dark”

Life will be good. We will spend time with our loved ones as “they’re all still around”. Maybe not an everyday occurrence, but just “once in a while,” but still good, nonetheless. The worries of aging and fear of growing old and losing those closest to us will subside as we live in the moment with those same people. There is nothing to miss because we live in the present.

The sorrow comes afterwards. After we drive away from the function, after we leave our family, after we move across the country. That is when the sorrow comes, and the fear uses it to creep into our minds again. Acceptance removes the fear, though.

Mayer states poetically as the final line to the song, in the final chorus, that, “‘Cause, now, I see, I’ll never stop this train.” He still wants off the ride. Life is still moving too fast for Mayer, but he does not try to slow it down. Instead, he enjoys the ride. Although he wants off, he does not fear the speed, but he embraces it. We do not have to like what we embrace, but embracing things that we do not like can make us better, healthier people. Accepting that we cannot slow down life allows us to live more in the present, rather than missing out on so many things by trying to slow down the ride.

In life, we have to control what we can control. Time is not one of those things. There is no use in trying to control it or slow it down, because when we look up, we will realize that in our attempt to slow down time, we wasted it. Growing up is scary. Life is scary. Embrace it.