John Mayer: My Swift song got overblown

John Mayer thinks people should stop obsessing about his love life because it's not like he has "an incurable cancer".

The 37-year-old singer has become known as a womaniser thanks to romances with a number of A-listers, including Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson.

For a long while people were more interested in his personal life than his artistry, something which was obvious when he released his track Paper Doll in 2013. It was widely thought to be about his ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift and he's now confirmed it was, although the column inches it received still rankles with him.

"The song never got listened to as a song. It became a news story because of the lyrics," he told MSNBC.

"I'm not in the business of telling people what the song is about. I never said anything about it. And now I just go, 'Look, I can say the name Taylor Swift. She's an artist. I'm an artist. Let's just... everybody stop. Nobody's got an incurable cancer. We're rich people who get to live out our dreams. Let's just stop it.' I'm a musician who's bigger than one song or one record."

Since his relationship with Katy Perry broke up last year, John has largely kept out of the limelight. There are rumours the pair have reunited, but while he hasn't commented on them the musician has given his take on fame.

John is aware that some artists are better known than him so have more pull, but he's fine with that.

"Nothing bothers me anymore. There are going to be times when I make music as popular or as empirically value as that in terms of making pop music that won't sell as many copies. I'm fine with that," he said. "You get to an age where you say, 'Look, if I save a baby from a burning building and Kanye saves a baby from a burning building, there's more Google news hits on Kanye. I'm fine with it.' Now, together - and this is what I'm trying to tell you - we're unstoppable."