Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Art-For-Art’s-Sake Theatre: “I’m Yours” (Jason Mraz)

It's time once again for our usual midday Wednesday feature. “I’m Yours” is the first top ten single for a Virginia-born singer-songwriter, now living in San Diego, named Jason Mraz. The song peaked at number seven on the Billboard Top 100 in 2008, and was nominated for a Grammy in 2009. There is more than one recording; at the least, a conventional studio version with full instrumentation, and an acoustic release. It still gets a fair amount of air play.

Our first clip is a live rendition of the latter, shown in Korea on EBS Television, and featuring singer-percussionist [insert name here]. The first half is the song itself, while the second is a pre-emptive encore and ... oh, almost forgot. There's also the original ukulele version, which is featured here on the second clip, along with the lyrics. Singing in two parts with the alternation of lyrics is the fun part, and for those of you on the coffeehouse circuit, it's one way to get the audience in on the act -- unless they've heard it a million times already, and that would be bad.

Of his childhood, Mraz has said:

My hometown of Mechanicsville was very American. There were white picket fences, a church on every street corner, low crime and virtually no drug use. It was a good place to grow up.

More recently, he announced his engagement last December to singer-songwriter Tristan Prettyman, but won't close the deal until gay "marriage" is legal. Since his intended is a woman, one wonders how this affects him personally.

And so it goes ...
 

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