JOHN DAWSON DELIVERS A MOMENT OF RECKONING WITH NEW SINGLE “MEND IN MY WAYS”
There is a certain weight to a song that feels lived in, the kind that doesn’t just tell a story but carries the marks of time, regret, and redemption. John Dawson’s latest single, “Mend in My Ways,” is one of those songs—a quiet but powerful reflection on taking love for granted and the slow, often painful process of setting things right. Following the success of “Where You Belong,” “Things That I Meant to Say,” and “Life Just Came to Me,” Dawson continues to carve his space in the folk-roots tradition as a storyteller whose words feel as familiar as a well-worn book, yet as profound as a revelation.
Built on a simple but hypnotic ostinato, “Mend in My Ways” is not about grand declarations—it’s about humility, self-awareness, and the realization that love is not something to be assumed but continually earned. “I finally found my way back to you, love / I stumbled on the road to home,” Dawson sings, his voice carrying the weight of experience. The song’s bridge subtly shifts the harmonic ground beneath the listener, mirroring the quiet epiphany at its core: “I’ll get over the fear that got ahold of me / I feel older / It’s a feeling that has set me free.”
If Van Morrison’s “And It Stoned Me” used water as a metaphor for transcendence, Dawson draws from a similar well, closing the song with an image of deep, cool water that promises renewal. This is folk music in its purest form—a song that doesn’t demand attention but commands it through its honesty.
Thematically, “Mend in My Ways” fits into a long lineage of folk confessionals, from Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky” to John Prine’s “Long Monday”—songs that understand that regret is something to sit with. Dawson’s strength as a songwriter lies in his ability to craft a song that feels deeply personal yet universal, offering listeners a mirror in which to see their own moments of realization and renewal.
Dawson describes the song as a reckoning with the way love can become background noise when it should be the melody that leads us forward.
“Mend in My Ways is the story of taking for granted the person I should have valued most,” he says. “It’s about recognizing that love isn’t just given, it’s chosen—every single day.”
As the fourth single from his album Outlier, “Mend in My Ways” provides a moment of breath before the weight of what follows. It is sparse yet resonant, a song that lands softly but stays long after its final note. Where past singles have explored finding one’s place in the world and making peace with the past, this track turns inward, grappling with the personal cost of complacency in love.
In a world of fleeting moments, John Dawson is crafting songs that linger, songs that understand that folk music is about truth-telling. And in “Mend in My Ways,” the truth is as clear as the water that promises a fresh start.
Hi John! Good to see you again!
So wonderful to be with you again! I always deeply appreciate your making time for me.
“Mend in My Ways” carries such emotional weight—when did you know this song was ready to be shared with the world?
There’s actually a really special story around that. Some time ago, I was visiting some friends and we were having a great night. As has often been the case, I found myself sitting with a guitar, leading a little sing along and as the night went on, someone asked if I had any new music of my own to share, and I had just written “Mend In My Ways”. I’ll never forget that the guys there made me play it over and over again until they could write down and sing along with every word! Some of these guys were pretty tough dudes, haha! But something in that tune really cut through and resonated with them. The producer Adam Brunner was there with me, and we’ve talked often about that night. I remember being really struck by that moment. To be honest, it was a paradigm shift for me in understanding the kind of songs I wanted to write. From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to find a way to get that song out in the hopes that it might be meaningful to others. Once we started work on “Outlier,” we knew it would be included.
You’ve said this track is about taking love for granted. Was it difficult to be that vulnerable in your writing—or was it more of a relief?
Looking back, I think that vulnerability was the very condition that gave rise to the song. Given what I was feeling and experiencing in that moment, I couldn’t help but be vulnerable. Putting words around those feelings helped articulate my hopes of moving forward to a better place. In that respect, it felt like a great relief as it gave me some sense of resolve and focus. In general, I don’t really have a problem with sharing how I feel, but in everyday life, I guess you have to pick your moments. In song, that is not nearly as much of a problem. I’ve often used songwriting as a tool for solving problems for myself. I don’t always share those, but this one felt worth sharing. Some people have a journal. I have a guitar.
This single feels like a quieter moment after the momentum of songs like Where You Belong and Life Just Came to Me. How do you see Mend in My Ways fitting into the broader arc of Outlier?
Mend in My Ways starts to bring the entire tone of the album into its “second act”. From here, the next step pulls much more inward and, in a sense, downward. The album begins with a purposeful sense of naivety with Life Just Came to Me, and by the time this song comes around, it’s beginning the journey into the wilderness. From there, the album explores themes of resolve and resilience until its final conviction to stay the course and have a little faith (which is the title of the last song on the album). So I think that it plays a very important role in developing the overall narrative of “Outlier”.
You have a gift for writing songs that feel both incredibly personal and widely relatable. How do you strike that balance between specificity and universality?
I can’t even begin to express how much of a compliment that is to me. Thank you! As a perpetual student of this wonderful craft of musical composition and of songwriting in particular, I know that the proverbial “holy grail” of song craft is to take those particular experiences we have as people and frame them in a way where others can find an entry point and connect with the music we create. At the technical level, I would have to say that it often comes down to the words I choose and the context in which they are framed. I have never had a desire to leave people guessing about what I mean or to what I refer. I like to take whatever phonetic or syntactic utterance gives rise to an idea and think of its simplest, most direct semantic reality. At the risk of invoking a platitude, I wish to “say what I mean and mean what I say”. Much of that happens in the inevitable editing and rewriting. What’s that old adage? “Good songs aren’t written, they’re rewritten.”? I always try to balance the mode of expression with the integrity of intent. I am just so thankful to think that you have identified that in my work.
In a time when so much music is fast and fleeting, your songs linger. What kind of emotional or spiritual experience do you hope Mend in My Ways gives listeners?
Ok, once again, I am humbled by that notion of my songs lingering. My profound thanks. I think the beauty of song is that there a place for all manner of expression. Sometimes those things that are perceived as fleeting still leave their mark in a beautiful way. I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut Jr. who said a “plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.” Now, his answer as to what artists have pulled that off was The Beatles! And, while most of us now would hardly consider their work fleeting, in their time, it was occasionally labelled as such. Having said that, I do believe that there has been something of an imbalance in music. Too often, the desire to grab attention at the level of a quick bite on socials has come at the cost of remembering and prioritizing the power of song to challenge and pull one within. And in doing so, to afford the opportunity for a listener to look starkly at the only place that really matters: the heart. In the case of Mend In My Ways, I hope the takeaway, both emotionally and spiritually, is the acceptance of the fact that, more often than not, we will face the need for reconciliation. Whether individually or corporately, mistakes are made. The real question that remains is: how do we move forward?