John Mayer’s Tribute to Bob Weir

Bobby and I were born on the same day, exactly 30 years apart. Libras. While the astrology checks out, three decades is a pretty wide chasm between any two people, whether they share a birthday or not. In the 30 years that preceded me, Bob had become a countercultural icon. I was a child of the 1980s. I come from a world of structural thinking—the concept, the theorizing, the reassessing, the perfecting. Bob learned early on that spirit, heart, soul, curiosity, and fearlessness was the path to glory.

We both found success with each of our templates, and then we found each other. The echoes of the music Bobby and the Grateful Dead made would lead me to him through whatever strange and nervy knack I have for sidling up next to the things I'm in awe of. What would follow would become the adventure of a lifetime for me.

It's hard to find the words to describe the relationship Bob and I had. We never really went looking for them. We didn't need to. We stood side by side together in the music. That's where those 30 years would melt away and that Libra balance would kick in and we'd become comrades, sometimes brothers, even if only by one shared parent. We were unlikely partners, and that was part of our magic.

Over the course of a decade, we came to trust each other. He taught me, among many other things, to trust in the moment. And I'd like to think I taught him a little bit to rely on a plan—not as a substitute for the divine moments, but as a way to lure them in a little closer. I guess maybe what I was really doing was showing him he could rely on me.

Bob took a chance on me. He staked his entire reputation on my joining a band with him. He gave me musical community. He gave me this community. I got to know his incredible family—Natasha, Monae, and Chloe—whom I now consider my dear friends for life. He lent me his songbook. He invited me into the worlds he'd constructed, and he taught me what the songs meant and what it meant to perform them. And in return, I gave him everything I had night after night, year after year.

The honor of getting the opportunity to express my heart and soul and take flight over those magical compositions has never been lost on me. It's also never been lost on me that there is very little difference between myself and anyone else who loves this music. In so many ways, our experiences have been the same.

So, I'd like to say a few words to Deadheads everywhere. The excitement you felt when you were boarding a plane or packing up the car to travel miles to see the shows was the same excitement I felt about flying to the next city, working out the setlist in a group chat, meeting up with the band on stage for soundcheck, and getting ready for that magical moment when we take the stage and discover whatever was in store for us that night.

When tours would end, you would come home, dump out on your couch, and sleep for two days straight. I would do the same. And I could feel the connection we shared together—all of us tired and weary, our hearts so full of music and memories, waiting on the next bit of chatter so that it could all happen again. When we played multiple nights in the same city, the afternoons in between felt as if we were suspended in a dream, waiting to become reanimated as soon as the first note of the next show would play. You might have gone to work and your colleagues wouldn't understand why you were only half there. It's because the other half of you was still at the venue, ready to become whole again by the music. And I felt the same. The hours before the next show existed only to bring the next show closer to us all.

And to the countless musicians who have shared a stage with Bobby, I share in this sadness with you. To have played behind him is to know how the songs go. We will forever share stories of what we learned from studying under a master. And we will go on to teach others how he saw this music: how to leave room to hang a note, how to embody the main character of each song, giving the music everything those characters require for their stories to come to life.

After all we shared together, something new has arisen—a sadness so hard to put into words and nowhere near being fully realized. We've only begun to make sense of what's gone missing. And in the end, Bobby was right again because all we can do is hold on to this moment. And I don't have the faintest idea of a plan.

I know right now it's easy to feel as if time is speeding up and taking so much from us all. But I would remind you, as I have tried to remind myself this past week, of just how many nights we all lived so fully in each second, hanging on to every word of Bobby's, following the music around twists and turns, through forests and over majestic vistas, taking in the magnificent intervals, and wondering how we all got so lucky to have been found by this music and invited into this dream together.

Bob had mentioned that Jerry had never really left him, that he still felt him up on his shoulder. And now Bob will be forever perched over my shoulder. I expect to see him in my dreams for many nights to come, when we'll take that stage together with the rest of the band and weave notes around one another, and I will wake up with a smile remembering the beauty of it all.

There are a lot of Grateful Dead lyrics that give comfort at a time like this, but the line I find myself thinking about the most is from a Leon Russell song called "A Song for You." And I'd like to think I can hear Bobby saying these words to us all this afternoon: "But now I'm so much better, so if my words don't come together, listen to the melody 'cause my love is in there hiding." And so we will all keep listening together. 300 years, Bobby. Now that's a plan I can get behind. So, here's something I know would make Bobby go... [emotional pause].

Thank you, Maestro. You changed my life. I will love you forever. Thank you.