John Mayer criticizes Taylor Swift for 'Dear John'

NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift has never revealed her target in the scathing song "Dear John," but John Mayer's pretty sure it was about him — and he doesn't think that's cool.

In a new Rolling Stone interview, Mayer called "Dear John" cheap songwriting and said it made him feel terrible — and he didn't deserve it.

"I'm pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do," he said. "I never got an email. I never got a phone call. I was really caught off guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I'd already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you've ever been, someone kicked you even lower?"

Swift's song from the multiplatinum "Speak Now" album takes down a former boyfriend. Swift has never confirmed that the pair dated and when asked pointedly refused to say that song was about Mayer.

Mayer's "Born and Raised," his first album in three years, debuted as the nation's best-selling album last week. It marked a return after undergoing vocal cord surgery and more notably, a torrent of negative criticism after a Playboy interview in which he spoke explicitly about his former girlfriend Jessica Simpson's bedroom skills, took what seemed to be pot shots at another famous ex, Jennifer Aniston, and used of the N-word.

He apologized at the time, and in the Rolling Stone article, talks about making a conscious decision to remove himself from the spotlight after years of courting publicity.

"I just don't think I'm supposed to be in people's faces all the time" he said. "I made it about me. ... People were like, 'Dude — no. I like some of your songs. But get out of the frame.' People got upset I considered myself in, like, the top 10 male celebrities or something. It's like, 'No, you're the guy I listen to when I make omelets.'"

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