John Mayer Confesses To Being Half of My Heart

PEOPLE has the exclusive premiere of John Mayer's "Half Of My Heart" official music video, where a tux-clad Mayer sings and strums about not being able to "stop loving you with half of my heart" after apparently leaving his bride at the altar. "Half of My Heart" is third single taken from his "Battle Studies" album released in 2009 and was certified gold in the US. This song, in which Mayer confesses to being half-hearted in a relationship, is a collaboration with Country-Pop star Taylor Swift, but she does not appear in the video. Mayer seems to be back to his playboy-lover image.
"Half of My Heart" features more of a pop rock sound than Mayer's previous music. His previous albums explored blues and acoustic rock, especially in his 2006 album "Continuum." It also has a carefree, sing-along sound to it. Mayer told MTV News that the idea for the song came to Mayer in a dream. "I woke up with the song in my head called 'Half of My Heart,'" he recalled. "And the idea is that it's this real sort of updated — not that it needs to be updated — sort of Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks thing."
The lyrics of the song are sung by both Mayer and Swift; Swift sings with Mayer in the chorus and in the song's bridge. The lyrics are about the duo, with half of their hearts saying they should continue to love each other, although the other half says they are not each other's true love, and cannot keep loving each other. Mayer "tweeted" about wanting to record the song with Swift in March 2009: "Waking up to this song idea that won't leave my head. 3 days straight now. That means it's good enough to finish," he wrote "It's called 'Half of My Heart' and I want to sing it with Taylor Swift. She would make a killer Stevie Nicks in contrast to my Tom Petty of a song."
In an interview shown on television called Mayer: On the Record with Fuse (which only aired on the Fuse channel), Mayer's interviewer asked why the singer chose Swift to duet with, since she was only nineteen years old, and Mayer was 32. He responded by saying that he was not putting her on the album just to sell more copies for die-hard fans of Taylor Swift that might just get the album for that song.