Daisy Jones & The Six: The Novel, TV Series, and Album that Revived My Emotional Inner Teenager

“I’ve been in love. And it hurts, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t have to. Love doesn’t have to be bombs and tears and blood…if you’re lucky enough to find somebody that lifts you up even when you don’t deserve it. That’s where the light is. Find somebody who helps you see the light” - Daisy Jones

I’m in love with a band that never existed. 

After my second watch of Amazon Prime’s Daisy Jones & The Six, and spending nine hours listening to Taylor Jenkins Reid’s words via the audio book, I gave in to the narrative that this band had once existed and bought their Aurora album on vinyl. I don’t usually buy merch, nor do I re-watch a whole show from start to finish (and most definitely not within two months of my initial viewing), but what can I say? I’m a moth caught in the sparkling-spangled disco ball glow of it all. 

Daisy Jones & The Six curates a 1970s scene, where the worlds of two tortured artists collide to create a complex creative enigma, ending in their inevitable crash and burn. It’s a multi-faceted love story about connection and redemption, tip-toeing on a tightrope between stardom and sober sanity. Inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s famous Stevie Nicks stint, it’s a take on the psychedelic, Summer of Love-era rock star-cliche, complete with plenty of love, sex, and drugs (as well as some stellar looks, including, of course, a catalogue full of penny lane coats). Aurora, with its lyrical back and forth, mirrors a similar sound and structure to Fleetwood Mac’s conversational, stunner album Rumours. 

The novel has received hearty criticism for its structure. It’s laid out like a Rolling Stone interview, with the characters reflecting on the band’s rise and fall segmented by small sections of narration to aid the flow of the story. Critics will tell you it’s hard to follow, and to that I’d say that’s where it's nuanced beauty lies. I may just be used to reading transcripts, but it was wonderful to experience multiple characters' storytelling. The ‘interviews’ directly respond to each other, letting the reader in on hints as the story flows and unravels between the lines. 

I only actually read two chapters via a Kindle free sample before loading up the audio book. It was a wonderful listening experience, but in my opinion, the voice actors of Billy and Graham should have been switched, and the voices for Karen and Simone are completely wrong. 

Initially, I was drawn in by the TV show’s tangerine-hued trailer. It featured home-recorded Super 8 clips of Billy and Camila and their sweet, sensual, honeycomb-scented love, cut between scenes of the hardcore crashing between Daisy and Billy and their electric, creative lust. I knew then that this was a story about the complexities, contrasts, and comparisons of love. 

The mockumentary, biopic style of Daisy Jones & The Six finds its true form within the TV show adaptation, with soft, reflective ‘20 years later’ interviews interwoven in perfect harmony with the jaunt and jive 70s present. 

Throughout my second watch, my inner teenager was alive. I was both sobbing and scream-singing along at the top of my lungs, with a sense of reckless abandon I thought no longer existed in me. Maybe I’m just a sucker for a good redemption arch, but it’s more than that. This is a story about the different forms that love takes in our lives: soulmates, twin-flames, karmic connections, soul ties, platonic companions, chosen and biological families, passions, purposes, and vices. There are types of love that are good for us, and others that teach us important life lessons. We will never just experience one. Daisy Jones & The Six communicates how we are all interconnected influences on each other, and it’s up to us to find the light.