Daisy Jones and the Six - Part I: The Book
Spoiler alert warning!
A Cringy Start…
“I remember bumming a cigarette off of a roadie of the Byrds” I rolled my eyes.
And the line about buying “Dark Side of the Moon” at Licorice Pizza cracked me up. I quickly realized why these references weren’t cool to me. It’s because of my upbringing. I’m an L.A. Native who grew up with a musician father. To somebody, somewhere else, reading about these places and these bands is probably magical. I had to put my unique perspective aside in order to fully grasp the overall feeling of the book, to understand it on an objective level, which can be hard when something seems so familiar. But I didn’t grow up in L.A. in the late 60s and early-mid 70s. The scene then, of course, was something extraordinary and something that I’ll never experience or fully understand. Author Taylor Jenkins Reid does an excellent job of painting that picture.
Fleetwood Mac?
“And, baby, when you think of me
I hope it ruins rock ‘n’ roll”
I had heard “Daisy Jones and the Six'' was loosely based on Fleetwood Mac, so I kept that in the back of my mind as I read it. First, The Dunne Brothers being a blues band at the start…not very subtle. Then the rest happened gradually with Daisy and Billy not being able to work together, although they weren’t broken up. They weren’t even in a relationship. Unlike Graham and Karen. Their secret relationship lasted from the middle to the end of the book. And when she had the abortion I was immediately reminded of Stevie Nicks’ relationship with Don Henley that ended the same way. Then, the band broke up. During the creation of “Rumours”, it has been said that the only thing the band would talk about was the music. And it's forever an iconic album. However, I would argue that “Daisy Jones and the Six'' stands on its own. It does not have to be linked to Fleetwood Mac in order to be an enjoyable reading experience. Reid trims away the noise from the audience and brings forth a feeling: a feeling of being on stage with the band. I enjoyed reading the thoughts of the characters as they were up there.
Camila is Not Your Average Muse…
“Here is my Aurora”
It wasn’t until I read about Billy’s trouble with sobriety and when he cheated on his wife, Camila, that I found myself drawn in. Those were real stakes. In many tales about rock ‘n’ roll, there can be a pattern to the muses that morphs them into one. Even in “Almost Famous’” Penny Lane is seen through the point of view of the two main male characters. But not Camila. She is the first fictional “muse”, if you can even call her that, who has a mind of her own, in my opinion. She is told through her own perspective along with the perspective of her romantic opposite, Billy. Both sides of the coin. I think I can credit this illustration to her being written by a female writer. Camila is her own person. She’s not a rival for Daisy, although I felt Daisy’s sadness throughout the book. I felt her struggle of loving someone who could not love her back. Meanwhile, I equally felt Camila’s pain of having a troubled husband. A husband who was in love with somebody else. And I rooted for Billy to stay sober along with her. I rooted for him to be a decent father to their daughters. Reid presented Camila as a character full of humanity and not as a one sided, pretty girl for Billy to write love songs about (although he does do that with songs like “Aurora” and “Honeycomb”). Her humanity shines through her friendship with Karen and the way she challenged Billy throughout the novel. Camila is a force to be reckoned with and not just because the characters say she is. Because of the brilliant way she is written.
And yet…
At the same time, I found myself rooting for Billy and Daisy to be together. Those two illustrate how messy, chaotic, and passionate love can be. Even though she was bad for him. Even though he had a safe, healthy love with Camila. The poetic, fancified love he had with Daisy was something else…the kind of love that makes great music…
Rock ‘n’ Roll is a Boy's Club
“Just two bitches playing rock ‘n’ roll”.
A few summers back, “Echo in the Canyon” was released. The documentary celebrated the popular music that came out of L.A.’s Laurel Canyon neighborhood in the mid-1960s as folk went electric and the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and the Mamas and the Papas cemented the California Sound. The first time I watched it, I was so drawn in by the stories of these songs I had loved for years. When it was released on Netflix in 2020, I showed the film to my godmother. She wasn’t enthusiastic. And neither was I as I was now seeing this film with older eyes. All of the interviewees, except one, Michelle Philips, were men. And let’s face it, Michelle was not the star voice of the Mamas and the Papas. That was Cass Eliot. My Godmother asked “Where is Joni Mitchell?” If they are talking about the music of Laurel Canyon, Joni Mitchell seems to be the first musician to discuss. I reminded her that Joni didn’t really come into the scene until the early 70s and this film was about the 60s. Michelle talked about her relationships with John and Denny and how she was their muse while the male musicians being interviewed discussed their songwriting.
What I love about “Daisy Jones and the Six” is the way the music industry is discussed through the lens of the women musicians. Karen and Daisy’s different interpretations when it comes to clothing and being objectified, for example, was excellent. Karen refused to wear low cut tops or short skirts, stating she was sick of male band members trying to sleep with her. Daisy, on the other hand, dressed the way she wanted when she wanted and if she is objectified, that’s not her problem. That’s the men’s problem. When she is harassed by her manager, Hank, to the point that he has her pinned up against the wall, her declaration of how women naturally reflect on what they could have done differently as to not put themselves in that scary of a situation and how contrastingly men DON’T think of how much an asshole they are to have gotten to this point was riveting. I don’t think I’ve ever read something so simple. Something that really spells out sexism. And for a book that takes place in the 70s…I say bravo. Because as women, this has been happening to us since the dawn of time…
However…
The way Reid writes the men is a little repetitive. I mean how many times can one person say “it was rock 'n' roll” or “that’s rock 'n' roll”. And, let’s face it, no one really talks like that in real life.
The Magic of Songwriting
“I am not the muse. I am the somebody”
I really appreciate having the perspectives of those behind the scenes being front and center for a change. Not just the band. We get to hear the stories of the producers, mixers, even managers, and, my personal favorite, music journalists. Wink, wink. Because, let’s be honest, it’s a team effort to make an album. I loved reading about the creation of the songs. From the first draft, to being performed in concert. You feel like a fly in the wall in the studio and on stage. Like you are a part of the journey with the whole team.
Final Score: 6/10
Was “Daisy Jones and the Six” my favorite book? No. Did I enjoy it? Some parts. I really think this book was meant for 14 year old girls from the middle of nowhere who like Stevie Nicks. And that’s not who I am. I saw a lot of the tropes and a lot of the fluff.
Even the characters' names seemed as though they were picked out from some rock star name book. I mean you name a guy Eddie Loving, his future is pretty much set. Or Artie Snyder. Do you expect him to NOT be a band engineer? I’m pretty sure he helped mix the White Album!
All joking aside, the 70s rock references along with a strange sense of wokeness coming from the early chapters, like randomly bringing up Lori Mattix and inappropriate age gap relationships for absolutely NO reason, did make me cringe a bit. Luckily the cringing didn’t last. My favorite parts were reading about problems like addiction and loss. You know, real stuff. That’s interesting to me. I also, have to say, the way the book was constructed, as a series of interviews with the band and those close to them, was a great choice on Reid’s part. That way you get multiple perspectives in a short amount of time. And I absolutely loved that the person who conducted them turned out to be Julia, Billy and Camila’s first born. A surprising and very sweet twist.
Stay tuned for Part 2 about the new show on Amazon Prime…
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