Room for Squares-10 Years Later

Today marked the 10 year anniversary of the release Room for Squares. As cliche as it sounds, it's an album that completely changed my life.

The first time I had heard any of Mayer's music, it was after his EP, Inside Wants Out was released in 1999. One of the guys I worked with at the time played My Stupid Mouth for me and I will never forget thinking, "Finally......Someone else gets it!". It instantly became one of my favorite songs and that still holds true today.

When I first listened to Room for Squares I didn't instantly fall in love with it. In fact, it took quite awhile for me to really even like let alone love the album. You see, music had always my escape. When I listen to music, it is my time to forget about the real world and just fade into nothingness. Listening to music was my initial form of meditation. But the songs (most of them at least) on Room for Squares were just too "heavy". I related to them too much and the last thing I wanted to do was listen to a bunch of songs that reminded me of how I was already feeling. There really isn't much of an escape in that. Plus, I found Your Body is a Wonderland to be a bit creepy. And even if you change the words to "Your body is a taco stand" it still gave me the creeps.

For some reason though I kept going to back to the album, listening to it again and again and finally falling into crazy mad love with it. And as most everyone knows, how I felt about Mayer's music then is how I feel about it today. It's almost as if his music feels like home--like an old friend whose got your back and won't let you down.

Deeper than all of that, it is because of this album that I have traveled to all parts of the country, experienced and seen things I would have never imagined possible and most importantly met some of the most amazing women I am lucky enough to call friends.

It is very weird to think that if it wasn't because of this album (I guess technically you could say it was because of Inside Wants Out but I didn't actually buy that cd until after I purchased Room for Squares) that I wouldn't be able to call them friends. Our paths would have never crossed. My friends Heather, Vickie and I have talked about it before.....talked about how much we owe to Mayer and his music and when we do it all seems like a big joke. It's pretty ridiculous to feel like you owe a huge debt of gratitude to a dude you have never met (and for the record never want to meet). But it is so true. Without his music, without his album my life would be drastically different. I would be different. And that is all because of this album of 13 tracks released by a 24 year old dude from Connecticut.

Even though it's not from Room for Squares, I leave you with one of my absolute favorite songs from Mayer. This song, before all others, sums up why I am such a huge fan of the man and his music.