St Vincent has branded a John Mayer hit the ‘worst song ever written’ in a scathing rant, describing it as ‘deeply misogynistic’.
The 46-year-old is responsible for bops including Gravity, Free Fallin’ and Your Body is a Wonderland, but his 2003 track, Daughters, is where his fellow musician draws the line.
In a new interview, the Rosslyn singer – real name Annie Clark – was asked to list 10 songs that changed her life, and didn’t hold back.
Although she couldn’t help but rave about Michael Jackson’s Bad, Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix and Steely Dan’s Fire In The Hole, it wasn’t quite the same for poor John.
‘It’s just so hideously sexist but it pretends to be a love song, but it’s really, really retrograde and really sexist,’ she fumed to Kerrang of Daughters.
‘And I hate it… It’s so deeply misogynistic, which would be fine if you owned that, but it pretends like it’s sweet.’
Over to you, John…
Daughters was released in 2003 and served as the third single from his Heavier Things album.
In the lyrics, he urges parents – fathers, in particular – to treat their daughters well, so they can have better relationships in the future.
He can be heard singing: ‘Fathers, be good to your daughters, daughters will love like you do.
‘Girls become lovers who turn into mothers, so mothers, be good to your daughters too.’
Despite St Vincent’s remarks, Daughters became a critical success and earned John the song of the year trophy at the Grammys in 2005, beating out Alicia Keys’ If I Ain’t Got You, Kanye West’s Jesus Walks, Hooberstank’s The Reason and Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw.
Unpacking the controversial lyrics during an appearance on VH1’s Storytellers in 2010, he explained that he was inspired by an unnamed girl he ‘loved a lot’, but she had a bad experience with her dad, and was unable to trust men.
He told the audience: ‘I loved a girl a lot but she couldn’t trust men, and if you trace it back as to why, the first man in her life she couldn’t trust.
‘I know this song called Daughters sounds like I’m just sitting around the house, spit balling, coming up with some really nice, lofty things to sing about.
‘But it really is the result of having traced it backwards, trying to figure out how I could possibly love this person.
‘The answer is you can’t because someone else didn’t before you.
‘I’m really singing to a girl. I’m singing, “Fathers, be good to your daughters” because I can’t love this girl.’
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