Page 77 of Daisy Jones & The Six

DAISY:After the Grammys, Billy and I started talking again. Well, sort of. We had just won for a song we wrote together, a song we sung together, and that resonated with me.

BILLY:She leveled out. She loosened up. With Niccolo gone, it was…easier to have a conversation with her.

DAISY:We were on an overnight flight to New York to doSaturday Night Live.Rich had given us the Runner jet. I think almost everybody had fallen asleep. Billy was on the other side of the plane from me. But our chairs were sort of facing each other. I had on a tiny dress and I was cold and I took a blanket and wrapped it around myself and I saw Billy see me. And he laughed.

BILLY:Some people will never stop being themselves. And you think it drives you crazy but it is the very thing you will think about when they are gone. When you don’t have them in your life anymore.

DAISY:I looked at him and I laughed, too. And it was, for a moment, at least, like we could be friends again.

ROD:By the time they didSaturday Night Live,“Young Stars” had become a hit, too. It was number 7 on the charts, I think. Somewhere in the Top Ten. We were selling so many albums they couldn’t print them fast enough. Runner had teed up “This Could Get Ugly” as the next hit.

DAISY:ForSNL,the decision was that we would do “Turn It Off” as the first song, and then we would do “This Could Get Ugly” for the second.

KAREN:I bet Warren that Daisy wouldn’t be wearing a bra and I won two hundred bucks.

WARREN:We’re all deciding what we were gonna wear and I bet Karen fifty bucks that Billy wore a denim shirt and Daisy didn’t wear a bra. I won fifty bucks.

KAREN:During dress, Daisy and Billy were actually speaking to each other. You could tell there had been a shift, somewhere.

GRAHAM:We did the dress rehearsal for “Turn It Off” and it went really well. So did “This Could Get Ugly.”

BILLY:When the show started, I planned on doing it just like we’d rehearsed.

DAISY:Lisa Crowne announced us, you know, “Ladies and gentlemen, Daisy Jones & The Six,” and the crowd went crazy. I’d been in huge stadiums with crowds cheering but it felt different. This small group of people just in front of us, making that much noise. It was this jolt of energy.

NICKHARRIS:By the time Daisy Jones & The Six performed “Turn It Off” onSaturday Night Live,they were performing a song almost everyone in the country knew. It was the Record of the Year.

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.

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