Daisy Jones & The Six(73)

Daisy was wearing faded black jeans and a satin pink tank top. Of course, she’s got the bracelets on. She’s barefoot. Her hair is this brilliant red. She was dancing around the stage, singing her heart out, and tapping the tambourine. She looked like she was having a great time. And Billy Dunne is in his classic denim and denim. He’s up close on the mike, watching her, having a great time himself. They looked like they belonged up there together.

The band is hitting every beat with a crispness and a freshness that you don’t expect when a song has been played as many times as you know they’ve played this song.

And Warren Rhodes is a showstopper for anybody interested in learning what it means to hold an entire band together with the drums. He was electric behind those things. If you could take your eye off Daisy and Billy long enough, it would go right to him slamming down on the floor toms.

And then as the song progresses, and the lyrics get a bit more pointed, Billy and Daisy both seem transfixed with one another. They move to the same mike and they sing facing one another. This emotive, hot-blooded song about wishing you could get over someone … they seem like they are singing to each other.

Billy: There was so much going on during that performance. I had to be aware of my timing and the words and where I was looking and where the camera was. And then … I don’t know … Suddenly Daisy was there next to me and I forgot about everything but just looking at her and singing this song that we wrote together.

Daisy: The song ended, and I sort of snapped out of it, and Billy and I looked at the audience and then he took my hand and we bowed. That was the first time my body had so much as grazed his in a very long time. It was the sort of thing where, even after he let go, my hand still hummed.

Graham: Daisy and Billy had something no one else had. And when they played it up, when they actually engaged with each other … It’s what made us. That was one of those moments where you think their talent is absolutely worth all the bullshit.

Warren: Between songs, Billy told me he had an idea for “A Hope Like You.” I liked the idea. I told him as long as everybody else was okay with it, then I was, too.

Eddie: “This Could Get Ugly” went great at dress. And at the last minute, Billy wants to do “A Hope Like You.” A slow ballad. And he wants to play the keys instead of Karen. So it’s just him and Daisy onstage.

Billy: I wanted to really surprise everyone. I wanted to do something unexpected. I thought it could be … something to really remember.

Daisy: I thought it sounded really, really cool.

Graham: It all happened so fast. One minute we’re all supposed to go out there to play “This Could Get Ugly” and the next, Billy and Daisy are going out there alone to play a different song.

Karen: I’m the keyboard player. If someone is out there with Daisy, it seemed like it should have been me. But I understand what he was selling when he went out there. I got it. Doesn’t mean I liked it.

Rod: It was a brilliant move. The two of them out there alone. It made for great TV.

Warren: They were facing each other, Billy at the piano, Daisy standing opposite him with the mike. The rest of us watched from the sidelines.

Daisy: Billy started playing and I caught his eye, for just a moment, before I started singing. And … [pauses] It just seemed so obvious, so painfully embarrassingly obvious. Without Nicky there to distract me, without keeping myself so drugged up I wasn’t even mentally present, it just seemed so obvious that I loved him.

That I was in love with him.

And getting high and going to Thailand and marrying a prince wasn’t going to make me stop. And him being married to somebody else … That wasn’t going to stop it either. I think I finally resigned myself to it in that moment. Just how sad it all was.

And then I started singing.

Karen: You know when you can hear that there is a lump in somebody’s throat? That’s what she sounded like. And it … it killed everybody in the room. Her looking at him like that. Singing to him like that. Singing, “It doesn’t matter how hard I try/can’t earn some things no matter why.” I mean, c’mon.

Billy: I loved my wife. I was faithful to my wife from the very minute I straightened up. I tried desperately to never feel anything else for any other woman. But … [breathes deeply] Everything that made Daisy burn, made me burn. Everything I loved about the world, Daisy loved about the world. Everything I struggled with, Daisy struggled with. We were two halves. We were the same. In that way that you’re only the same with a few other people. In that way that you don’t even feel like you have to say your own thoughts because you know the other person is already thinking them. How could I be around Daisy Jones and not be mesmerized by her? Not fall in love with her?

I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t.

But Camila meant more. That’s just the very deepest truth. My family meant more to me. Camila meant more to me. Maybe, for a little while there, Camila wasn’t the person I was the most drawn to. Or …

…

…

…

Maybe Camila wasn’t the person I was the most in love with. At that time. I don’t know. You can’t … Maybe she wasn’t. But she was always the person I loved the most. She was always the person I would choose.

It is Camila, for me. Always.

Passion is … it’s fire. And fire is great, man. But we’re made of water. Water is how we keep living. Water is what we need to survive. My family was my water. I picked water. I’ll pick water every time. And I wanted Daisy to find her water. Because I couldn’t be it.