drone shot of my yacht john mayer

John Mayer’s ‘Drone Shot of My Yacht’ Becomes the Earworm of the Moment (Listen)

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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Songwriters are straining to meet the moment as the coronavirus crisis intensifies — and John Mayer has definitely met this one with a new song, “Drone Shot of My Yacht,” that captures all the angst felt by billionaires as they wait out the pandemic, adrift on the high seas.

Although it doesn’t mention anyone by name, the tune satirizes the widely mocked photograph David Geffen shared, presumably shot by a drone, of his ocean exile. And it might be the catchiest song you’ll hear all season — no amount of mental hand sanitizer will scrub this earworm from your head.

The chorus: “Drone shot of my yacht / It’s all I got / I’m all alone on the water.” Verse: “Let me flex these specs / 456 feet, six or seven decks / And I know you all wanna stretch your necks / To see what I got on it / But I don’t even give a heck.”

View this post on Instagram If it’s stuck in my head, it might as well be stuck in yours. Here’s “Drone Shot of My Yacht,” as featured on last night’s @currentmood. A post shared by John Mayer 💎 (@johnmayer) on Mar 30, 2020 at 4:40pm PDT

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Mayer premiered the song in the middle of his weekly live Instagram program Sunday, and it went over well enough that he released a minute-long version to his regular Instagram account.

On the Instagram show, which has alternately been known as “Current Mood” or “The Gentle Hours,” he introduced the song as part of a segment he said will be known as “Now Now,” which he said will be devoted to “whenever anybody tends not to understand the overall tenor of society right now of what we’re going through and gets called out for it.”

Said Mayer, “This weekend’s ‘Not Now’ goes to David Geffen, who posted an Instagram photo of himself on his boat saying he was isolated in the Grenadines. And I gotta tell you, I don’t know where were the Grenadines are. The most offensive thing to me in this post is assuming that I know where the Grenadines are.”

In the live show (which can be seen below — he sings and talks about the song between the 14- and 19-minute points), Mayer shares a few additional lines of what may be a longer song, like, “I bought that bitch in 2004 / I don’t need to take your … s— anymore.” He also threw in generous extra helpings of R&B melisma to round out his live rendition.

“Gotta get John Oates on that song,” he reads a viewer asking, reading comments off the screen. Mayer responds: “If anybody wants to cuts that song with me, it’d be really funny.” Make it so, the world commands.

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John Mayer's Drone Shot Of My Yacht is the song we didn't know we needed

He came up with the comedy track on his Instagram show Current Mood and it already sounds like a hit to us

John Mayer knows how to write earworm hooks. Need further proof? He's written a comedy song called Drone Shot Of My Yacht on his Instagram TV show Current Mood and we're already singing the chorus. Here's a clip…

If it’s stuck in my head, it might as well be stuck in yours. Here’s “Drone Shot of My Yacht,” as featured on last night’s @currentmood. John Mayer 💎 A photo posted by @johnmayer on Mar 30, 2020 at 4:40pm PDT

It's the song we didn't know we needed right now. And Current Mood is well worth a watch if you're uninitiated – offering featuring musicians Mayer admires as guests, plus David Chappelle musing on why people are stocking up on toilet paper right now. What more can you ask for? 

Dave Chappelle joined me on last night’s @currentmood and offered compelling insight as to why people stock up on toilet paper during times of crisis. John Mayer 💎 A photo posted by @johnmayer on Mar 18, 2020 at 10:55am PDT

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John Mayer's absurdly catchy 'Drone Shot of My Yacht' is the coronavirus song we deserve

Everyone wants to write the great coronavirus anthem but — apologies to Bono — there can only be one John Mayer.

On his Instagram Live program this weekend, Mayer premiered a parody song called "Drone Shot of My Yacht," in which he skewers billionaires sitting out the pandemic on their luxury boats. It was such a hit, Mayer then reposted a minute-long version later in the week, Variety reports :

"This weekend's 'Not Now' goes to David Geffen, who posted an Instagram photo of himself on his boat saying he was isolated in the Grenadines," Mayer had told fans of his inspiration . "And I gotta tell you, I don't know where the Grenadines are. The most offensive thing to me in this post is assuming that I know where the Grenadines are."

More stories from theweek.com The Secret Service signed an 'emergency order' this week — for 30 golf carts Experts warn as many as 1 in 3 coronavirus test results may be incorrectly negative John Mulaney and Nick Kroll revive their Oh, Hello characters for a podcast investigating Princess Diana's death

John Mayer Drops Parody Song About Billionaire David Geffen’s Viral Yacht Pic

“Drone shot of my yacht, it’s all I got, I’m all alone on the water…”

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https://www.instagram.com/p/B-YGR-UFH_M

Everyone staying at home all the time to avoid catching the novel coronavirus has given celebrities opportunities to create content they might otherwise never bother with, and John Mayer ‘s perfectly-executed parody song lampooning a tone-deaf Instagram post by billionaire David Geffen is an excellent example.

Mayer is one of the funnier celebs who doesn’t actually do comedy and he’s been doing a Sunday Instagram live show he first titled Current Mood. He recently retitled it The Gentle Hours  and Brobible describes it well , noting that it is “inspired by the time of day when the world seems to wind down for the evening; when the news cycle doesn’t smack you in the head with another depressing blow for the day.”  

Mayer introduced “Drone Shot of My Yacht” about 14 minutes into the 40-plus minute show, (you can watch the full-length episode above).

The song—”Drone shot of my yacht, it’s all I got, I’m all alone on the water”—is making fun of billionaire David Geffen, who in what he felt was an effort to encourage social distancing posted pics on social media of his massive yacht, stating that he was hiding out in the Grenadines. 

Instead, Geffen received tremendous blowback in the form of an avalanche of criticism from people who felt he was flaunting a massive amount of privilege at a time when many people are struggling with coronavirus-related job loss as well as the terrifying possibility of catching the most severe form of the bug. 

As Bloomberg notes:

Geffen’s Caribbean excursion is the latest revelation of how the crisis is affecting people unequally across the globe. While the world’s wealthy have fled to vacation homes, specially made bunkers or floating palaces, rank-and-file workers from nurses to supermarket cashiers have been left juggling childcare and risking infection working jobs deemed essential.

Geffen eventually had to make his Instagram private due to the backlash.

The thing about Mayer’s snarky song, which he says came to him immediately, is it’s actually a pretty nice little groove. 

Maybe he’ll put out a longer version everyone can chill to when enjoying photos of the beach and breakfast margaritas while still sheltering in place this summer. 

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John Mayer’s ‘Drone Shot of My Yacht’ Becomes the Earworm of the Moment (Listen)

Click here to read the full article.

Songwriters are straining to meet the moment as the coronavirus crisis intensifies — and John Mayer has definitely met this one with a new song, “Drone Shot of My Yacht,” that captures all the angst felt by billionaires as they wait out the pandemic, adrift on the high seas.

Although it doesn’t mention anyone by name, the tune satirizes the widely mocked photograph David Geffen shared, presumably shot by a drone, of his ocean exile. And it might be the catchiest song you’ll hear all season — no amount of mental hand sanitizer will scrub this earworm from your head.

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The chorus: “Drone shot of my yacht / It’s all I got / I’m all alone on the water.” Verse: “Let me flex these specs / 456 feet, six or seven decks / And I know you all wanna stretch your necks / To see what I got on it / But I don’t even give a heck.”

Mayer premiered the song in the middle of his weekly live Instagram program Sunday, and it went over well enough that he released a minute-long version to his regular Instagram account.

On the Instagram show, which has alternately been known as “Current Mood” or “The Gentle Hours,” he introduced the song as part of a segment he said will be known as “Now Now,” which he said will be devoted to “whenever anybody tends not to understand the overall tenor of society right now of what we’re going through and gets called out for it.”

Said Mayer, “This weekend’s ‘Not Now’ goes to David Geffen , who posted an Instagram photo of himself on his boat saying he was isolated in the Grenadines. And I gotta tell you, I don’t know where were the Grenadines are. The most offensive thing to me in this post is assuming that I know where the Grenadines are.”

In the live show (which can be seen below — he sings and talks about the song between the 14- and 19-minute points), Mayer shares a few additional lines of what may be a longer song, like, “I bought that bitch in 2004 / I don’t need to take your … s— anymore.” He also threw in generous extra helpings of R&B melisma to round out his live rendition.

“Gotta get John Oates on that song,” he reads a viewer asking, reading comments off the screen. Mayer responds: “If anybody wants to cuts that song with me, it’d be really funny.” Make it so, the world commands.

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John Mayer Roasts David Geffen’s Isolation Humblebrag With ‘Drone Shot of My Yacht’

Earlier this week, billionaire record mogul David Geffen humblebragged  about isolating on his 450 ft. yacht in the Grenadines. Now, the roasting is entering a whole new level, thanks to John Mayer.

David Geffen’s tone-deaf humblebrag featured a drone-snapped photo of his 450 ft. superyacht, complete with the caption, “Sunset last night… isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus. I’m hoping everybody is staying safe.” The extremely ill-timed display of ostentatious wealth led to a swift shaming, with Geffen immediately making his Instagram account private. But that’s hardly tamping out the surging flame of ridicule.

Enter John Mayer, who spent the last 24 hours writing an entire song dedicated to roasting Geffen’s gaffe. Titled ‘ Drone Shot of My Yacht ,’ the accompanying Instagram video features endless drone-shot pics of Geffen’s yacht against beautiful backdrops — including, of course, the Grenadines.

For those looking for a shot of humor in these times, Mayer has definitely delivered.  “Drone shot of my yacht, it’s all I got, I’m all alone on the water,” Mayer sings in a catchy chorus atop an upbeat track.  Awesomely, the video features one drone-snapped superyacht photo after another, all of which seem to be Geffen’s actual boat.

“If it’s stuck in my head, it might as well be stuck in yours. Here’s ‘Drone Shot of My Yacht,’ as featured on last night’s  @currentmood ,” Mayer relayed to his 4.9 million Instagram followers, referring to his ‘unofficial show,’ Current Mood. The video itself had already been viewed more than 850,000 times by Tuesday evening — though that number is likely to climb quickly.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by John Mayer ? (@johnmayer) on Mar 30, 2020 at 4:40pm PDT

Whether the roasting prompts any meaningful response from Geffen is unclear. As of Tuesday, it appears that David Geffen has nuked his entire Instagram account, which suggests a serious retreat. But maybe Geffen is planning a philanthropic comeback — perhaps by chartering his boat towards the troubled waters of New York City and converting his yacht into a temporary COVID-19 hospital. Even a donation would do the trick, and transform a humblebrag into a memorable gesture of goodwill. Until then, let the roasting continue.

6 Responses

Mayer…whatever. Great guitarist, but cmon, leave Geffen alone. So what he has a boat?

Rich people problems. They are not struggling to pay their rent.

This virus doesn’t discriminate depending on wealth. We’ve seen that with Joe Diffie. Geffen has the same risk as anyone else to get this and he’s quarantined on his boat. Big deal.

My point was: who gives a rat’s fart about what one rich person says about another? People are losing their homes, jobs, cars, etc. and we are concerned about millionaires (billionaires) insulting each other?

What a strange world. We get what we deserve for panicking. I hope the US wakes up soon and realizes the cure is worse than the disease.

I agree with your first part, but tend to disagree with the second. Sure, there are some people who are doing stupid things like hoarding toilet paper. Yes, that is an unnecessary panic. Then there are those who completely ignore the situation and go on cruises or spring break. The cure will not be worse than the disease to those people who have lost loved ones.

Life sucks. Western culture is soft. People die.

John Mayer's absurdly catchy 'Drone Shot of My Yacht' is the coronavirus song we deserve

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Everyone wants to write the great coronavirus anthem but — apologies to Bono — there can only be one John Mayer.

On his Instagram Live program this weekend, Mayer premiered a parody song called "Drone Shot of My Yacht," in which he skewers billionaires sitting out the pandemic on their luxury boats. It was such a hit, Mayer then reposted a minute-long version later in the week, Variety reports :

"This weekend's 'Not Now' goes to David Geffen, who posted an Instagram photo of himself on his boat saying he was isolated in the Grenadines," Mayer had told fans of his inspiration . "And I gotta tell you, I don't know where the Grenadines are. The most offensive thing to me in this post is assuming that I know where the Grenadines are."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week 's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate , and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News , The Awl , Vice, and Gothamist , among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter .

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