Rozlyn Zora Released New Single ‘Speechless’

This Valentine’s Day, University of Central Oklahoma singer-songwriter and musician Rozlyn Zora released her new single, “Speechless,” and embarked on a mini-tour over the weekend.

Rozlyn Zora, a student at the Academy of Contemporary Music at UCO, studying audio engineering, said she had been wanting to record this song for a while.

With the encouragement and help from fellow classmate and friend Katie Carmichael and Stuart Adams, a music production and engineering student worker for UCO ACM, the song was produced over winter break.

“She needed the motivation to make this happen,” Carmichael said. “We were talking about it and I said, ‘What if I just started booking shows for us to do a run?’ Then you would have to do it.”

Zora agreed with Carmichael to do the mini-tour and said that ‘Speechless’ was more of an afterthought, but as soon as it came together over winter break, she decided she wanted to release the song on Valentine’s Day, just in time.

“With ‘Speechless,’ the guitar part, I had been playing around with for the past few years,” Zora said. “The verses were more like, who I would pick to be with, and I want to be with someone humble and kind.”

With the lyrics and the guitar part set, all Zora needed was the chorus, and that came to her one night in a dream.

“That night I was asleep, and I was dreaming, and the chorus came to me while I was sleeping,” Zora said. “‘Speechless, dreaming I only mean it when I say I want you.’ I woke up and wrote it down real quick.”

Having the guitar part done before writing her lyrics is very unusual for singer-songwriter Zora, who has been performing since she was three-years-old.

“Usually the lyrics come first,” Zora said. “As a singer-songwriter, I like to focus on the words.”

The song incorporates acoustic guitar, played by Zora, and piano, played by ACM graduate Heather Becker. Zora usually self-produces her songs, as she has done in the past.

“I’m super OCD, so I gave it to Stew [Adams] and asked him to help me mix this song,”  Zora said. “I knew it wouldn’t be done in time if I was the one mixing it, so he was able to take that off my hands and help me with that.”

Adams and Zora met each other their first semester at ACM and have kept a relationship since. When Zora approached Adams about the song, he was happy to help.

“It was a really fun project to record,” Adams said. “We came in and tracked the whole song in one night, with the acoustic guitar first. Then the piano player arrived, and it only took her two takes to play the whole song straight through.”

The three-day mini Makeup//Breakup tour started Feb. 14 in Tulsa at the Rabbit Hole, then onto the Reb Brick Bar in Norman on Feb. 15, and the tour ended Saturday nigh Feb. 16 in Bentonville, Arkansas at the Bike Rack Brewing Co.

Zora and Mandias [Carmichael’s stage name] lead the line-up, with special guests, mostly all ACM and former ACM students, rounding out each show.

According to Zora, “Speechless” is available on all major music platforms — Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, YouTube and Google play etc.