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About

Genius Annotation

“Paper Doll” was believed to be a 3 year late response track to John’s ex girlfriend Taylor Swift’s 2010 record about him, “Dear John.” This was unanimously believed to be true for almost 6 years until in 2019 when John Mayer spoke about the song “Paper Doll” on his Instagram talk show “Current Mood.” In it, John stated that “Paper Doll” was a song of his that he felt didn’t get the love it deserved and that it wasn’t who people thought it was about.

Regardless, there still appear to be several direct lyrical tie-ins between “Paper Doll” and “Dear John”:

John directly replies to Taylor’s line, “you paint me a blue sky then go back and turn it to rain” with, “and if those angel wings don’t fly, someone’s going to paint you another sky.”

John directly replies to Taylor’s line, “and I look back in regret how I ignored when they said, run as fast as you can” with, “you’re like twenty-two girls in one, and none of them know what they’re running from”. This line also draws reference to Taylor’s 2012 song, “22”.

John also publicly commented to Rolling Stone in 2012 about Taylor’s “Dear John”, saying it “humiliated” him and “made me feel terrible,” a year before the release of “Paper Doll.”

The two notably collaborated on Mayer’s 2010 song “Half of My Heart,” which was released 4 months before “Dear John”.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

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