Belief by John Mayer

Belief by John Mayer is one of my favorite songs of past five years and my favorite song he has ever released. I became a fan of Mayer after he released his first single, No Such Thing, because I was impressed with his writing quality of metaphors, rhymes, and allusions to messages he puts in his songs which also have great hooks, guitar riffs, and beats. I think Belief is an important and contemporary song about our world and how we should live in it.
Belief is a song from Continuum, an album which includes songs dealing a lot with contemporary war times and getting older, such as the title track, Waiting on the World to Change, which also has a similar message to Belief. The song, Belief is about how beliefs can make us fight with each other, because no one's beliefs are more correct than others, and warns us of the dangers of believing certain things through life and death. The situations he describes throughout the song visually move us, because we have all seen protests, funerals, and other effects of war in our life times.
Belief is written with a third person voice and is in AABACA format. Mayer uses a couple of creative rhymes such as "sword" with "for" and "exhibition" with "weapon" that I wouldn't have thought of. The progression of the song is precise and flows smoothly, using each stanza to back up his overall message. The story and situations make us realize how our beliefs can help us get through toughness of life and create more dangers. Believing also can hurt us and others through their power, and the song makes us ask ourselves tough questions about how we should act according to our beliefs.
The title, Belief, is a great one-worded title with lots of meaning and a universally known concept which everyone in the world could relate to. Mayer emphasizes the title by putting in the song seven times in five of the stanzas, to clearly make its placement important. He also uses key words like "mind," "armor," "everything," "everyone," "think," and "war" to go along with title's meaning.
In the first stanza, Mayer uses the metaphors of "paint on a sign" to represent protesting and "breaking rank" as a term for soldiers. Protests and soldiers go hand in hand with war, indicating Mayer is talking about our current situation with being at war with Iraq and Afghanistan and is reminiscent of September 11th, which he shows in his lyrics. It is what is hidden in the lyrics that is the most important message about this song.
In the second stanza, which I believe is a bridge, Mayer simply states twice, "Everyone believes," meaning everyone has beliefs, whether they are morally and ethically right or simply wrong. "They're not going easily" is about how beliefs can't change deep down, are hard to get rid of, and we can't change other peoples as much as we would like to.
In the third stanza, he describes belief as "a beautiful armor but makes for the heaviest sword," meaning our disagreement in beliefs are what causes war in the first place. He makes mention to the innocent casualties of war, such as the children and bystanders caught in the crossfire, by writing, "Like punching under water, you never can hit who you're trying for."
Mayer writes, "Some need the exhibition/ And some have to know they tried, " meaning people need to fight for what they believe in and stand up for them instead of being quiet. Mayer writes of the personal struggle with our beliefs due to outside factors, describe it as, "It's the chemical weapon/ For the war that's raging on inside."
In the second bridge, he writes repeats "Everyone believes" from the first bridge, making its repetition more effective throughout the song. We can have beliefs "From emptiness to everything," meaning we can believe it what we want and no one can tell us what to believe in. "And no ones going quietly," further emphasizes the point of fighting for what we believe in.
The sixth is the most important because it is the summary for the entire song. He tells us "We're never gonna win the world," meaning we can't force our way of life onto others and people are always going to fighting against us or trying to destroy us. He follows this important line with "We're never gonna stop the war" and "We're never gonna beat this" as an agreement with the message of the title and the first line in this stanza.
In his last stanza he talks about death, the death of soldiers based on war and the fight for freedom. Mayer uses sentimental lines like, "What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand, belief can," making us wonder if the deaths of thousand of soldiers are worth the fight for freedom. He follows up by asking, "What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand, belief can," which tugs at our heart strings, through the war images we have seen on news or experience personally. Mayer's message of the last stanza, which I think reflects the entire message as a whole, is that beliefs can do anything to anybody, whether there are good or bad consequences.