Daisy Jones & The Six(48)

And I’ll never forget, Billy leaned onto the button, and said, “If you were a cat, your screech would bring every cat running to you.” And I liked that. The idea that just by being me, I was doing all right.

So I opened up my mouth and I breathed in deep and then I went for it.

Billy: None of us told Daisy this and I … I hesitate in even saying it now but … her first two takes were god-awful. I mean, wow. I was starting to regret what I’d told her. But we just kept encouraging her.

When someone is out on a ledge like that, especially when you’re the one that coaxed them out there in the first place, you don’t dare do anything to unbalance them.

So I said, “Great, great.” And then eventually after, I think, the third take, I said, “Go one octave deeper.”

Rod: It was either Daisy’s fourth or fifth take. I think maybe fifth. And it was fucking magic. I mean, magic. I don’t use that word lightly. But it felt like you were witnessing something that only happened a few times in a lifetime. She just wailed. The record that you hear, that was Daisy’s fifth take, start to finish.

Billy: She started so assured in the first verse, not quiet, necessarily, but even. Leveled. “Impossible woman/let her hold you/let her ease your soul.”

And she let that simmer a little bit, grew in intensity in this really subtle way through the next, you know, “Sand through fingers/wild horse, but she’s just a colt.” And on “colt” is where you really felt her start to amp up.

She went through another verse and then the first time she sang the chorus, I could see it in her eyes, she was looking right at me, and you could feel it building in her chest, “She’ll have you running/in the wrong direction/have you coming/for the wrong obsessions/oh, she’s gunning/for your redemption/have you headed/back to confession.” And it was when she repeated “confession,” then she really just let it fly.

Her voice breaks, in the middle of the word, it cracks just a little. And then she goes through most of the verses again. When she gets to the chorus a second time, she just unleashes her voice on it. It’s rocky and gritty and breathy and there’s so much emotion in it. It’s like she’s pleading.

And then she closes in on the end. “Walk away from the impossible/you’ll never touch her/never ease your soul.” Then she added a couplet. And it was great. It was perfect. She sang, “You’re one more impossible man/running from her/clutching what you stole.”

She sang the entire song with such a heartbreaking lament. She made that song so much more than what I’d given her.

Daisy: I opened my eyes after that take and I barely remembered doing it. I just remember thinking, I did it.

I remember realizing I had even more power in me than I had originally thought. That I had more to give, more depth and range, than even I knew about myself.

Rod: She was looking right at Billy the whole time she sang. And he was staring at her, nodding along with her. When she finished the song, Teddy started clapping. And the look on her face, the delight she felt, it was like watching a kid on Christmas. Truly. She was so proud of herself.

She pulled the headphones off and threw them down and ran out of the booth and—I kid you not—ran directly into Billy’s arms. He picked her up, just off the floor, and kind of swung her back and forth for a moment. And I could have sworn to you he smelled her hair before he put her back down.





Daisy: We were all in the studio recording one afternoon when Camila came in with the girls.

Graham: I had said to Camila, “Why don’t you bring everybody here more often?” Because Camila would stop by occasionally but it was always for a minute to drop off something to Billy. She never came and hung out. But we had so many people hanging out back then.

Of course, the time she comes in to hang out for a little while, one of the twins starts crying for what seemed like no reason. Wouldn’t stop. I don’t remember if it was Susana or Maria but Billy took her and held her and tried to shush her and she would not calm down. I took her, Karen took her. It didn’t matter what we all did.

Camila ended up taking both of the twins outside.

Camila: Babies and rock ’n’ roll don’t really go hand in hand.

Karen: I went for a walk with Camila and the girls one day at the studio. I said, “How are things going?”

And she just … opened up. Talking and talking like the words were tumbling out of her. The twins weren’t sleeping and Julia was going through a jealous period and Billy was never home. And then she stopped in place, as she was pushing the girls along with the stroller, and she said, “Why am I complaining? I love my life.”

Camila: What is it they say? The days are long but the years are short? Whoever said that was a mom with three kids under the age of three. Tired and cranky on an hourly basis, bursting with joy when you put your head on the pillow. Raising kids is hard work. It was work I was happy to do, though.

Everybody is good at something. I was good at motherhood.

Karen: Camila had said to me that day, something like “I’m living the life I want to live.” And there was an ease about her, as she said it.

Graham: While Camila and the twins were outside, Billy set Julia up in the control booth. She was there hanging out with Artie and Teddy and everybody while we all laid something down.

She had such a fun time in there. She was so cute with the cans on her ears and her tiny little dress. Her hair was still blond then. Her legs were so short, they didn’t even bend at the knee when she sat, just stuck straight out.