“Daughters” by John Mayer

"Daughters" is the gentle heart of Heavier Things, John Mayer's 2003 album on Columbia, and it became the record's third single. Mayer wrote it alone and plays the guitar himself, with Lenny Castro adding percussion, and the whole thing moves with a soft, unhurried sway.

The song is a plea to parents, fathers above all, to take care of their girls while they're young, since the way a daughter is raised shapes the way she'll love as a woman; Mayer makes the point through a lover who carries that damage. He has told more than one story about where it came from, but on VH1's Storytellers in 2010 he tied it to an ex-girlfriend whose absent father left her with trust issues that eventually ended the relationship. It won Song of the Year at the 47th Grammy Awards, in 2005.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.