Why Hello There

Hello everyone :-). I’m u2shamrock (or you can call me Alyssa if you want to). I’m 20 years old and am in college majoring in General Engineering. If anyone has math or science questions, don’t hesitate to ask, haha. Let me start off with a background of my music history:

Flashback to 2001. I’m a 6^th/7^th grader who is just getting over her phase of *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. One day I hear a song by U2, “Walk On”, that piqued my interest. So I purchase the album that has that song on it and fall in love. So over the next two-three years I become a huge U2 fan (…maybe obsessed). They’re the first band whose music spoke to me on all levels. Of course, considering the website I’m posting this on, I won’t go into full details there :-P. I would listen to other bands and singers, but didn’t focus in on any others. That is, until 2003.

During my freshman year of high school I would watch VH1 music videos while getting ready in the morning. There was always this one video playing: “The Remedy”. I would watch it and think, ‘who does this guy think he is? Another John Mayer? Psh, he’s nothing special…’. A few months later his next video/single is released: “You and I Both”. I heard it a few times and changed my opinion to ‘hmm, I guess this guy is pretty good. I mean, I better but his CD to see if he’s still good on the other songs.’ I remember that night clearly: it was a stormy night, and my friend (who I later converted) and I went to Best Buy with my dad. I searched and found “Waiting for My Rocket to Come”. I got home and listened to it right away…and from then on I was hooked.

The week after that was finals week. I brought my CD player to school (haha, that makes me sound ancient) and listened to it after I took my tests, when I walked home, until I went to bed. Of course, no one knew of him and wouldn’t give listening to him a chance. So I followed his music, all without the help of YouTube, so it wasn’t that easy ;-). “Mr. A-Z” came out and even though I liked it, I preferred the older stuff. After that, I focused more on U2 since they had an album and tour going on.

My freshman year of college in 2007 I decided to check out RKOP again and see what the latest news was. People had posted videos of new songs and I was absolutely floored once again, especially by early versions of "A Beautiful Mess". I went through a few months of rediscovering Mraz. I finally saw him live for the first time on 4-25-08 (RKOP day) at Eastern Illinois University. I saw him again at the Aragon in Chicago, at UIUC (my school, woot!), and at the show that was taped in Chicago this past summer (you can see me for a few brief half-seconds in some spots). And of course now all of my friends are like OMG I LOVE JASON MRAZ!! …I told you that 7 years ago!!! Haha

Wow, this is a lot longer than I expected it to be lol. I’ll wrap it up with why I love him so much. His words have been the only other ones to touch me deeply. Sure, every song is about love—but what’s wrong with that? His voice can take my emotions, twist them into a knot, and make me feel at ease all within a few songs. I have an old audio clip I downloaded way back when that is a phone conversation he left to RKOP. It’s 15 minutes of him just rambling, but it can calm me down instantly. His way of putting together words is amazing, as can be seen by his blogs. Sometimes when I get stressed out over school, I’ll put on his songs and cry until I can cry no more. And it feels so right.

Not my video, but it was my first time hearing the song in person that started it all. Plus, my favorite change-of-lyrics in the middle.