Daisy Jones & The Six(51)

Billy: “This Could Get Ugly.” … That was one, we had the song before we had the lyrics done. Graham and I had come up with a guitar riff we liked and that song spiraled out of that. I actually went to Daisy and said, “Got anything for this?”

Daisy: I had this idea in my head. Of “ugly” being a good thing. I wanted to write a song about feeling like you knew you had somebody’s number, even if they didn’t know it.

Billy: Daisy and I met up at Teddy’s place one morning and I played it for her again and she threw some stuff out. She was talking about some guy she was seeing, I don’t remember who. And she had a few lines that really spoke to me. I really liked “Write a list of things you’ll regret/I’d be on top smoking a cigarette.” I loved that line.

I said to her, “What’s this guy putting you through to write a song like this?”

Daisy: Even then, I wasn’t sure if Billy and I were having the same conversation.

Billy: She was great at wordplay. She was great at flipping the meaning of things, of undercutting sentiment. I loved that about what she was doing and I told her that.

Daisy: The harder I worked as songwriter, the longer I worked at it, the better I got. Not in any linear way, really. More like zigzags. But I was getting better, getting really good. And I knew that. I knew that when I showed the song to him. But knowing you’re good can only take you so far. At some point, you need someone else to see it, too. Appreciation from people you admire changes how you see yourself. And Billy saw me the way I wanted to be seen. There is nothing more powerful than that. I really believe that.

Everybody wants somebody to hold up the right mirror.

Billy: “This Could Get Ugly” was her idea, her execution and it was … excellent.

She had written something that felt like I could have written it, except I knew I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have come up with something like that. Which is what we all want from art, isn’t it? When someone pins down something that feels like it lives inside us? Takes a piece of your heart out and shows it to you? It’s like they are introducing you to a part of yourself. And that’s what Daisy did, with that song. At least for me.

I could do nothing but praise her for it. I didn’t change a single word.

Eddie: When they came into the studio with “This Could Get Ugly,” I thought, Great, another song that has got no room for me to try my own thing on.

I didn’t like who this was all turning me into. I’m not a bitter person. In almost every other situation in my life, I’m not this guy, you know what I’m saying? But I was getting so sick of it. Going into work every day feeling like a second-class citizen. That stuff messes with you. I don’t care who you are. It messes with you.

I said to Pete, I said, “Second-class citizen. First-class resort.”

Karen: It definitely became a club that we weren’t in. Daisy and Billy. Even the word down from Runner Records was keep Daisy and Billy happy. Keep Daisy and Billy stable.

Warren: Daisy was always skipping out on stuff she didn’t want to do. She was always coming in sauced. But everybody was acting like she was the goose that laid the golden egg.

Daisy: I honestly thought I was balancing all of it fine. I wasn’t. But I really thought I was.

Karen: I had thought she had the pills under control and I realized at some point while we were recording that album that she’d just learned to hide it better.

Rod: Billy and Daisy would seem like they were getting along like a house on fire and then Daisy would be late for something or she’d be outside with somebody and nobody could find her and Billy would get pissed.

Eddie: Daisy and Billy would be outside on the sidewalk, thinking we can’t hear them, and they’d be screaming at each other about something or other.

Karen: Billy got very angry when Daisy slacked off.

Billy: I don’t think Daisy and I fought very much back then. Maybe normal stuff. Just as much as I’d fight with Graham or Warren.

Daisy: Billy thought he knew better than me what I should be doing. And he wasn’t necessarily wrong. But I still wasn’t about to have anybody telling me my business.

I was caught in a whirl of my own ego. I had this validation I’d been looking for for such a long time. But on the other hand, I was so unsatisfied in so many ways.

Back then, I had an oversize sense of self-importance and absolutely no self-worth. It didn’t matter how gorgeous I was or how great my voice was or what magazine I was on the cover of. I mean, there were a lot of teenage girls that wanted to grow up and be me in the late seventies. I was keenly aware of that. But the only reason people thought I had everything is because I had all the things you can see.

I had none of the things you can’t.

And a lot of good dope can make it so you can’t tell whether you’re happy or not. It can make you think having people around is the same thing as having friends.

I knew getting high wasn’t a long-term solution. But God, it’s so easy. It’s just so easy.

But of course, it’s not easy at all, either. Because one minute you’re just trying to nurse a wound. And the next, you’re desperately trying to hide the fact that you’re now a jury-rigged, taped-up, shortcutted mess of a person and the wound you were nursing has become an abscess.

But I was skinny and pretty so who cared, right?

Rod: Teddy was always trying to keep Billy and Daisy calm. They were … Billy and Daisy together was like tending a little fire. Good if controlled. Just keep the kerosene away from it and we’ll all be fine.