Your Body Is a Wonderland

News of the Obamas’ Alice in Wonderland party brought back painful memories of the first time I heard John Mayer’s “Your Body Is a Wonderland.” Mayer’s song can only be described as disappointing, and not just because of the candyass I-IV-V backing. The title conjures up white rabbits emerging from nostrils, the Walrus and the Carpenter marching up a xiphoid process, a smoking caterpillar sitting on a withering prostate. Instead, this was Mayer’s present to the world:

“Your Body Is A Wonderland” live

With its porcelain skin, candy lips, and bubblegum tongue, the body of Mayer’s fuck buddy is a lollipop shop, not Wonderland. Wonderland has talking animals, games come to life, magic potions and cakes, cruel hierarchies, jokes, paradoxes, inversions, contradictions. The cherry-nippled body Mayer sings about is no more Wonderland than it is Oz, Shangri-La, or Cleveland. It’s just a piece of ass.

The story the song tells is as ordinary as a fart. In his conquest’s room with an afternoon to kill, Mayer sets out to “discover me discovering you.” The bed turns into a “sea of blankets” in which the fuckers swim, which is mildly hallucinatory, but the bangin’ body remains an ordinary thing: you look good “crawling towards the pillowcase,” I like your hair on your face, you look so good it hurts, da da dup ba da da da, I’ll call you.

“Your Body Is A Wonderland” music video

The music video not only dramatizes the sex the song describes, but also depicts Mayer scribbling the lyrics in a notebook and performing the song live. I wanted to know what this felt like, so I masturbated, rewrote the lyrics, and sang it to my probation officer. My version goes:

We got the afternoon
You got this heroin [pronounced hair-on] spoon
Let’s jack up and turn blue
Discover weed
Discovering glue

One Jew to every Christian,
Hell, let the Muslims in.
One world, one God, one church and
Death to infidels!

And if you want skag
We'll slam it,
Abscesses, face scabs,
Wet blankets.
Take your neighbors’ hands
And break ‘em
Surely, the unrighteous must perish!

The Lord protects the fatherland
The Lord protects der Vater (I’ll break your hands)
The Lord protects the fatherland

No proven link between HIV and AIDS
Don’t you worry about that stain that’s on my pillowcase
Took the bus to the clinic
Like I told you already
That big motherfucker stuck my arm
I’m waiting for the results

You want meth?
We'll smoke it
I got a flat-screen
And whip-its
Take those canisters
And break ‘em
Maybe Chad has some amys

Our Lord protects the fatherland
Our Lord protects der Vater (break those fuckin’ cans!!)
Our Lord protects the fatherland

Damn traitors
You disbelieve
We fear the God of Abraham
Let’s spend tonight in the hospital

Da da dup ba da da da
Ba ba dup ba la la la
Ba ba dup ba ba da da
Ba ba dup ba da da da
Ba ba dup ba ba da da
Ba ba dup ba da da da
Ba ba dup ba ba da da
Ba ba dup ba da da da

Readers searching for a better sonic approximation of Wonderland than John Mayer’s are referred to Chad & Jeremy’s Of Cabbages and Kings, which at least includes some actual music.

Chad & Jeremy “Rest in Peace”