St. Vincent Declares John Mayer’s ‘Daughters’ ‘Worst Song Ever Written’

“Daughters” may have won John Mayer the 2005 Grammy Award for Song of the Year, but the song didn’t win him any flowers from St. Vincent (Annie Clark). Clark picked Mayer’s 2003 smash as the “Worst Song Ever Written” and tore into its lyrical content.

St. Vincent’s thoughts on “Daughter” were shared with Kerrang! in a 10 Songs That Changed My Life feature. “It’s just so hideously sexist but it pretends to be a love song, but it’s really, really retrograde and really sexist,” Clark said about her “Worst Song Ever Written choice. Annie didn’t stop there, adding of Mayer’s hit, “And I hate it… It’s so deeply misogynistic, which would be fine if you owned that, but it pretends like it’s sweet.”

John Mayer appears to be a fan of St. Vincent’s music. Mayer spun cuts from the latest St. Vincent album, All Born Screaming, on his SiriusXM channel Life With John Mayer. However, the same isn’t true in reverse as this wasn’t the first time Clark struck at Mayer.

“It’s kind of a joke in the music industry that sound people, when they’re walking into a new venue, will put on a Steely Dan record to test the system, because they’re just known for being, like, sonically perfect,” St. Vincent told Vinyl Me, Please in 2021 before bringing up the Dead & Company guitarist. “One time, a sound guy who I was working with put on John Mayer’s Gravity, and I fired that sound guy.”

John Mayer released “Daughters” on his 2003 studio album, Heavier Things. “I loved a girl a lot, but she couldn’t trust men,” Mayer said about the ex that inspired “Daughters” during a 2010 appearance on Storytellers. “And if you trace it back as to why … the first man in her life she couldn’t trust,” the guitarist said of his former romantic partner’s father.