Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,68

wrote those notes.

Ready?

[Waits until she gets a nod]

“American Girl,” by Petty. “Heroes,” by Bowie. “Me and Bobby McGee,” Joplin, but Kristofferson wrote it, and listen to all the versions, including Gordon Lightfoot’s. “Because the Night,” Springsteen and Smith. “Fire and Rain,” by Taylor. “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” by Wainwright. “Gold Dust Woman. “Into the Mystic.” “Living in the City.” “Walk on the Wild Side” “What’s Goin’ On.”

I promise you, what you get out of those songs will not be what you got out of them after you have more life under your belt.

You will fall in love, and fall out of it, and back in, and get a broken heart.

You will lose people you love in slow ways that will feel like someone opened a tap in your heart to let the blood drip out and in fast ways that will set you spinning so you’re so dizzy, you don’t think the earth will ever rotate the same again.

And you’ll be right.

About both.

You will hear of, and witness injustices.

You will be betrayed.

You will do things that will make people feel ways you never wanted them to feel, but you were so stuck in your life or your head, you didn’t pay attention to what you were doing.

You will say things you wish you could take back.

You will hear things you wish you never heard.

See things you wish you could unsee.

[Draws in breath]

Do things you wish you could undo.

They did covers. They always did covers. They were musicians [grins] and musicians like music.

When I’d go to their shows before that tour, I always looked forward the most to when they’d do a cover.

I told you I fell in love with their music, so it wasn’t about them playing something more familiar that I’d like.

It was that they loved music and they didn’t choose to do covers of songs they hated.

[Closes eyes, opens them]

And when they played those songs they loved, those songs that led them to the life they chose…

They were not a multi-platinum, sold-out tour earning band because they sucked onstage.

Far from it.

But when they did covers.

[Whispers] Fuck.

They were something.

Every show of that tour I watched.

That night, that first night when I realized something was very wrong with Preacher, and he knew I knew it, they did a cover.

By this time, their show was a production.

It wasn’t just the band.

They had percussionists and backup singers and their show was a show.

And he sang “Maybe I’m Amazed.”

DuShawn banging on the piano.

Preacher doing the guitar solos.

[Swallows and whispers]

God, the way his voice got raspy.

[Interviewer’s note]

At this point in the telling of her story, the gray cat, who had found a spot on a pillow at the far corner of the daybed, picked its way across the cushions to lie on its stomach next to Lyla but with its paws on her thigh.

And after Lyla distractedly began to rub its neck, it started kneading.

I’m not sure my memory is correct.

Maybe it was just what I was feeling.

But if I’m right, no one sang with them when they played that song.

They were mesmerized.

An entire arena.

And this was not surprising.

I was mesmerized.

And I thought I could not be more tuned into Preacher at that point.

But I wasn’t old enough.

I was still just a girl.

I didn’t get it.

I didn’t get what he was telling me.

I didn’t get what DuShawn had warned me about.

[Looks out the window]

I didn’t get it.

[Interviewer’s Note]

Lyla ended the session at this juncture and asked that I return the next day.

I agreed and left her sitting on the daybed, stroking her cat and staring out the window.

I closed the door behind myself.

Jesse:

It was a killer idea at the time, and in the end, I don’t know what to say.

I have that book and I look at that book and it makes me smile.

It also makes me proud.

And it makes me want to carry it onto a boat, sail deep into the ocean and throw it overboard.

Last, it makes me want to hang my head and cry.

I’m sure, you doing this, you’ve seen it.

[Off tape]

Cat Trelane’s book?

Yup.

I own it.

’Course you do.

Well, I’ll give you the full story.

Trelane goes to the label who goes to Tommy, and as I hope I’ve impressed on you, Tom was not a stupid guy.

Trelane was the biggest fashion photographer out there.

And the most controversial.

He was like Robert Mapplethorpe and Herb Ritts had a naughty kid they couldn’t control, even though, he reads I said that, he’ll find me and kick my ass.

[Grins]

And he’d be right because he was his