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“When the music
begins, you can’t
tell who’s a Democrat
or who’s Republican. You
can’t tell if you’re American
or European or Australian.
.”
Oslo appearance years ago for Nobel Peace Prize concert,
and then, in
, singing at the Obama family’s lighting of the
national Christmas tree at the White House. “And I casually
called the president ‘Barack!’ ” he says, chuckling at the mem-
ory. “I’m like, ‘Hey, what’s up, Barack?’ which felt awkward. It
didn’t feel like the right thing to do, but he let it slide. … ose
are good memories. ey were de nitely honorable gigs. Every
now and then, you get one of those.”
Like so many Americans, Mraz has struggled with the
changes in the White House—and the country—since
.
He’s a man whose passions include the environment and sus-
tainable agriculture (he owns a ranch in Southern California,
outside of San Diego); arts education for kids (which is one of
the causes focused on by his charity, the Jason Mraz Founda-
tion); and
equality (he just wrote a “love poem” to the
community, published earlier this summer, in which
he came out as bisexual). So the extreme change in the federal
government’s priorities naturally drove Mraz to ll a notebook
with songs of anger and despair. But, for reasons both com-
mercial and personal, he hasn’t recorded and released them.
“As a writer, you write all kinds of stu . I have to write that
other stu in order to sing my folk songs, you know? As
a brand, I think Atlantic is smart to not put out
Jason
Mraz’s Bad News Songs
. I don’t need to be the one to
highlight all the same shit you’re seeing on your Insta-
gram feed, your Facebook feed, the nightly news,
et
cetera
. … And honestly, it’s not the weight I want to
carry around, either. I’d rather sing at your wedding
than on the front lines of a ght. at’s just who I
am. I’m a lover, not a ghter—no apologies.”
Mraz the lover gets a distinct pleasure when
he performs, he says—something he’s seen over
and over again, no matter where in the world
he’s standing on stage. “Since day one I’ve
noticed, wherever I travel, that humanity
is all similar. When the music begins,
you can’t tell who’s Christian, who’s
Jewish, who’s from the Democratic
side or who’s Republican. You can’t
tell if you’re American or European
or Australian. Anything that we’ve
de ned as a border, it all melts away.
e lights go down and we all become
the same color. We get uni ed; we sing
the same words.
“ ese are really big, profound things
that happen during concerts,” Mraz continues.
“And I get the best seat in the house, because I get
to watch everyone melt together and become humanity.
All the bad stu that we drag around with us gets le out in
the parking lot. It’s been a real gi to witness this, and to be a
part of it.”
Web Behrens covers arts, culture, and travel for the
Chicago Tribune
and
Crain’s
Chicago Business
. He’s also worked as an editor and contributor for
Time Out
Chicago
and the
Chicago Reader
.
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