I know this is going to sound kinda weird from me once people read the thing I wrote about me Hanson concert and meeting them and all but just try to bear with me. About 4 months ago my life had really start to fall appart. It seemed as if nothing was going my way and everything. I decided that it wasn't worth living my life anymore and I should just take it. I had lost like all of my friends from school and everything. I had a boyfriend but online, and he lived 3,000 miles away in England and I am in Florida. Well, I was online one night and decided to tell him that I was going to take my life right then and there. He told me to get offline and pick up the phone as soon as it ringed. It was him, he knew I loved Hanson and told me to put my CD in on "I Will Come To You" and listen closely. He told me that they lyrics were exactly how it was with him and me. And when the part that says "Sometimes when all your dreams, may have seen better day, and when you don't know how or why but you've lost you way, have no fear when your tears are fallin, I will hear your spirit callin' and I swaer that I'll be there, come what may..." that really hit me hard and he got me to stop and take the razor blaides off my wrist. Things got better after that and when I was down I just turned on "I Will Come To You" and remembered that he was there for me even if it seemed no one was. Then, in August, I lost my best friend in a random drive-by shooting. Well, when Tony died I was crushed. My friend came over to be there for me and she went and put "With You In Your Dreams" in for me. And I knew that Tony would want me to remember him because he will always be with me in my heart and spirit and that I didn't need to be down forever over his death. Then, about a month ago (September) my boyfriend in England and I had broken up and I was really really upset about it and all. So, then it seemed that no one cared. My best friend told me to remember all that he told me and with Hanson and all and to remember that they care about all their fans. And I knew then that someone cared, Hanson cared. They cared about all their fans and I am a big fan. Well, on September 21st 1998 I got to go to my 1st Hanson concert. When they played "I Will Come To You" and "With You In Your Dreams" the tears ran and I never thought they would stop. Later that night, as you will know if you read my concert review and encounter, I got to thank them for everything and saying in and interview 1 time that they cared about all their fans and they are now what makes me strong and keeps me going. They were speechless. But, I felt sooo much better after getting to say thank you. And anyone who has it bad, just remember, Hanson cares about all their fans.
Sarah (Orlando FL)This is a story for your "Hanson helped me" page.. I don't mind if you put my name in it ir anything:
I have had an eating disorder for the past 9 years of my life. I'm 21 now and I've had it since I was 12.. Well, I have been in hospitals, all kinds of therapy and several times that I should have died and I didn't. Last year when Hanson came out, I listened to them and liked them and had no idea that they were going to be the ones that actually saved my life in the long run. I am a very big fan of their's and it just seemed that if ever I was depressed or something wasn't going right in my life, I could listen or watch Hanson and everything would magically be ok. But I still was in a bad state with my eating disorder. I was out excersizing and I fainted in the road and the next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital 2 days later with my best friend sitting beside me playing "I Will Come To You". I had been in a coma and the Dr's and nurses werent expecting me to wake up... at all. They tried everything they could to keep me going and I was on life support.. Well, they really thought that I wasn't going to make it and my best friend knew how much Hanson and their music had helped me through everything else, so she brought in her CD player and played that song.. She said that when she first started playing it, even she didn't know if it would work or not, but she said that I squeezed her hand and so she kept playing it and playing it for about an hour.. and then I woke up. As you can see, I'm still alive and I have also recovered fully from my eating disorder. Isaac, Taylor and Zac, if you guys are reading this, I just want to say thank you for saving my life. ~WhitneyWhen I was in 6 th grade*I'm in 8th now*, my life wasn't as easy as I would hoped it would be. My parents were driving me up the wall and my brother was being a little brother. My mom always had knives where they were easy to reach. While I was in school, in social studies, I told my best friend that I was going to cimmit suicide. She gave me a look and told me that it was illegal. I shrugged my shoulders and promised I wasn't going to see the next day. I walked into my house that night and looked at the big knife on the counter, sitting in the wooden holder. I walked over to it and took it out. I pressed it against my collarbone and quickly turned around just as my friend and my brother walked through the door. "What are you doing?!" is what I heard from both of them. It was then that I realized that I had cut myself on my neck when I turned around. I ran to my room and looked at my CD's. I found the orange CD case. I didn't know what CD it was. I couldn't see through my tears. I flipped it in my CD played and picked any random number. It ended up on #9 ( and we all know what that one is, right?). I started listening to it and realized what it was (after about halfway through the song). I calmed down and got out the lyric sheet. I looked at the lyrics and realized that...I had more than one reason to live for and not enough reasons to die. First of all...I knew I had a couple of vocal chords that I could use and I'm in the middle of recording an album with my best friend. So...that was my "Hanson helped me" and they really did.
Jessa (Grahamsville, NY) "Hi, I'm a 16-year old girl from Chicago, Illinois. I used to be such a wreck$B)(JI skipped school, I hung with the 'bad crowd,' I stole every now and then (Leading to dozens of hours dedicated towards community service), I treated my family like shit, did 'Speed' and 'Pot' every now and then, I wore black leather and dyed my hair purple and green. You could say I was kinda like a mixture of Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson. Everybody said I had no future, despite the fact that I come from a well to do family, and that I was gonna end up in the far ends of the ghettos someday. When I first heard of Hanson, I thought they were immature little dorks and that they looked so gay. But after their song 'I Will Come To You' was released, it opened up my eyes$B)(Jcompletely. I went out and bought their album and found several of their songs to be inspirational and aspiring to future obstacles and tasks. They may not be my idea of 'The Perfect Hunk,' they still do rank as one of the coolest most talented guys ever. It's been real hard, but since then, I've totally cleaned up my act$B)(Jand I have Isaac, Taylor, and Zachary Hanson to thank for that. Please put this up on your page, so that other people can see just how much effect these three brothers have on other people's lives. Thanks." *~ Laticia McLean~*"Last May (1997), my mother died of breast cancer, leaving me in the care of my grandparents. My mom, who had been everything to me, from my best friend, to my teacher, and my sole provider, was now gone. She had been the closest person to me in the world, and when she died, I had felt as if all life were sucked out of me. I was devastated and shattered both physically and mentally. I went through a stage of serious depression, and despite the fact that I love my grandparents very much, they weren't even a fraction of what my mother had meant to me. My friend, Liz, had seen just how broken up I was, and she lent me her 'Middle of Nowhere' CD, telling me to listen to Track 12. When she gave it to me, I felt like screaming, 'What the hell is this?! A freakin' CD is gonna make me feel better?!' I ignored the CD for weeks, until one day I remembered all about it, and picked it up and set it into my CD player(set for Track 12. I pulled out the lyrics sheet, and read through the words. By the end of the song, I was in tears(but both sad and happy tears. I realized that the words in the song were almost identical to the ones that my mom had said to me on her deathbed. I realized that my Mom was and always will be an important part of me, but she would most likely want me to go on living my life(just like the way Isaac, Taylor, and Zac's Grandmother wanted them to do. Now, even after a year of enduring the depression of my mother's death, I've been through ups and downs, and I continue to listen to 'Track 12' (aka 'With You in Your Dreams) as comfort whenever I find myself desperately missing my mom. Thank you Hanson, you guys are brilliant songwriters and musicians, I know that your grandmother is smiling down on you guys (damn proud of her grandsons." *~ Jessica Chu (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) ~*
"For as long as I remember, my little cousin, Maddie (short for Madeline), has been mentally retarded. She's 12 right now, and doctors say that she'll never be 'normal.' She used to always get angry at every little thing, she'd be sad, then mad one minute, but it seemed as though she was never happy. She couldn't really (Jxcept for a couple of sentences and she was basically one unhappy kid. I remember this one time, I had gone over to her house and was watching MTV in her living room. 'MMMBop' had come on and the most amazing thing had happened. She had been in the kitchen screaming as my aunt tried to get her to eat, but when the first verse of 'MMMBop' had started, she had immediately stopped screaming. She ran out of her chair and into the living room, where I was, and she sat down, like 6 inches away from the TV screen. By the end of the song, she was singing, or at least trying to sing, the chorus of 'MMMBop.' By the end of the song, she had started screaming again, and that was when we realized that she was in love with 'MMMBop.' (Later, we learned that she was also in love with Zac, =) We immediately bought the 'Middle of Nowhere' album for her, and she would listen to it everyday, especially her favorite songs: 'MMMBop,' 'Lucy,' and of course 'Madeline.' She even wears her hair in dreads (like Zac), has almost 10 Hanson tees, has dozens of Teen Beat and Big Bopper magazines just to look at the pictures, and has every single Hanson album and single release. She's seen TTMON for more times than I can count and her speech's even improved in this past year. But the most important thing, is that now, she's happy. Hanson's music makes her happy. Even though doctors say that she'll never get better, that's okay, what counts is that she's happy. Thanks Hanson." *~ Patricia Jensen (Arlington, Virginia)~*
"Hanson are my favorite band. For many reasons, definitely too many to write out to you right now, but one major reason is that they give me hope and faith. I'm 14 and I've been made fun of ever since I was in pre-school. People called me a nerd, they called me fat, they called me a dork(basically, they made me feel like crap. I used to try and ignore it, but after awhile, it had gotten too hard to handle, and I had even thought of suicide. The one time when I had seriously thought of doing so, was around November '97. I live in the city (I don't want to say where), and in an apartment building on the 7th floor. If I wanted to jump, I'd have no problem doing so. I still remember standing on the ledge of my window, preparing to jump, as the lyrics to 'I Will Come To You' and 'Weird' kept flashing through my head. I had come so close to actually jumping, but stopped at the last minute when I realized that there was so much more left to life than to just throw it all away. Hanson's songs made that clear to me, I know this may sound really pathetic, but they are almost like my 'Guardian Angel' and 'Guiding Light.' Now, I don't give shit what people call me, think of me, see in me(all that counts is that I'm satisfied with who I am. I hope that if Hanson ever read this, they understand that their music has helped so many peoplein many different ways." *~ Anonymous ~*
*~If you have a personal experience where Hanson has helped you, e-mail it in to us if you want. If you would prefer for us to delete your name, as to remain anonymous, tell us, and we'll do so.~*
