It has been a long wait by pop standards. On Friday, October 23rd, John Mayer released “Tom and Jerry,” his first new solo material as a lead artist since the 2021 album Sob Rock. In the years between, Mayer was hardly idle. He toured as a solo acoustic act, helped Dead and Company become one of the biggest stadium draws in the country, and spent forty eight nights inside The Sphere in Las Vegas. But the studio side of his solo career went quiet, and the arrival of a new single, with a new label behind it, signals that the quiet is over. Fans can watch the song here.

The Song

“Tom and Jerry” was co written and co produced with Blake Slatkin, a producer whose credits include work with Lil Nas X, Lizzo, and The Kid LAROI, and it was recorded at Chaplin Studios. The idea began life as a rough voice memo on Mayer’s phone, saved under the name Tom and Jerry, which turned out to be the song’s title as well. In his words, that was simply the name he used when he first filed the idea away. Out of that sketch came a smooth, rhythmic, introspective track with hushed vocals, a warm guitar led arrangement, and a soft rock sensibility that critics have compared to the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Don Henley.

The story the song tells is a cat and mouse romance. Two people with real feelings for each other have never managed to get their timing right, and the chase has become a kind of game, one the narrator admits he secretly enjoys. As the song builds, it reaches toward a hopeful idea, that if things fall apart in this life, there may be another chance in the next. It is a familiar Mayer subject, longing dressed up in melody, but with the lived in perspective of a songwriter who has had plenty of time to think about it.

A New Label and a New Chapter

The single also launches Sob Rock Records, Mayer’s own independent label, which operates in partnership with Mercury Records, a division of Universal Music Group. The arrangement gives him creative control over his master recordings while keeping the global reach of a major label’s distribution. It is also his first release outside Columbia Records, the home he kept for twenty one years before announcing his departure in early 2022. The song premiered on his SiriusXM channel, Life with John Mayer, and a live vocal performance video went up the same day.

The track is being positioned as the opening preview of Mayer’s next full length studio album. The timing lines up neatly with the rest of his calendar. Next spring he is headed back to The Sphere for a solo residency that has grown to eighteen shows, moving between solo, full band, and John Mayer Trio sets, so a fresh batch of new songs arrives right as the stage is being set.