Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid Page 0,56

I thought, This is happening. I was in a band. I was one of them. The seven of us, playing music.

Billy: As Daisy and I were singing it, I had to do a few takes in a row to really warm up but Daisy hit it right out of the gate. She really … Daisy was a natural. And if you’re going up against somebody like Daisy, then yeah, that’s annoying. But if she’s on your team … wow. Powerhouse.

Artie Snyder: I was still getting a feel for how the album would sound and my team was still tinkering with the setup. The early takes sounded a little tinny, and that’s what I was focused on. When you start off on an album, with new people and different sounds, in a new studio and all of that … you really have to get your levels right, your mikes right. I was obsessive about that stuff. Until it was coming through clean on the cans, I could not focus on anything else.

But, even knowing that about myself, looking back on it … I can’t believe I had no idea. We were making a massive hit record. And I had no idea.

Daisy: I knew it was gonna be huge. I really think, even then, I knew.

Daisy: A few days later, I’m going through my journal, back at my place. I think maybe it was a weekend. And I find one of Billy’s songs in there. One that he wrote for the album. “Midnights.” I think maybe at the time it was called “Memories.” I must have packed it up with my things by mistake when we were back at Teddy’s. So I started rereading it. I probably read it ten times in a row, sitting there.

It was pretty sickeningly sweet. All about how Billy has these happy memories with Camila. But there were a few good lines in there. So I started scribbling on top of it. Playing with it.

Billy: The next time we met up at Teddy’s, Daisy handed me “Midnights.” I’d written it over the summer. It was pretty straightforward when I wrote it. But she handed it back to me, pen marks all over the place and I could barely read any of the words. I held the page in my hand and I said, “What did you do to my song?”

Daisy: I told him it was actually a great song. I said, “Turns out, it just needed a little bit of darkness to it.”

Billy: I said, “I understand what you’re saying but I can’t read what you wrote.” She got mad and snatched the paper out of my hand.

Daisy: I was going to have to read it to him. I started reading the first verse but then I realized that was dumb. I said, “Play the song as you wrote it.”

Billy: I got my guitar and I started playing and singing the words as I originally wrote them.

Daisy: I cut him off once I got the gist of it.

Billy: She put her hand on the neck of the guitar to shut me up. She said, “I get where you’re going. Start from the beginning. Give this a listen.”

Daisy: I sang him his song back, this time with my changes.

Billy: It went from a song about your best memories to a song about what you can and can’t remember. I had to admit it was more subtle, more complicated. Much more open to interpretation.

It was very similar to what I had envisioned when I wrote it, but just … [laughs] better than what I got on the page, frankly.

Daisy: I didn’t change a lot of his song, really. I just added in this element of what you don’t remember to highlight what you do remember. And then I restructured it, to include a second voice.

Billy: By the time she was done, I was really excited about it.

Daisy: Billy immediately went into writing mode. He took the paper from me, grabbed a pen, started reordering a little bit. That’s how I knew he liked it.

By the end, we’d taken this song that Billy had about Camila and we made it about so much more than that.

Billy: We played it for everybody down at the studio. Just her and me and the guitar, over in the lounge.

Graham: I dug the song. Billy and I started talking about a solo during the bridge. We were on the same page.

Eddie: I said to Billy, “This is good, let me get started on my