Before you it was emptiness,
Booze and sex to numb the pain
But you say you’ve got another man
And you can’t say no to him
I’m asking, girl, for just one chance,
Just one moment, sink or swim
And all the times I heard you say
That I can’t expect more than just today
I’m asking you, girl…
Please…
Stay.
That night with you, I never knew
That sighs could be so sweet
I gave my best, I gave it all
To sweep you off your feet
And there’s got to be more than just one way
Every night you leave I fall down and pray
That you’ll listen to me, girl –
Please…
Stay.
But you left and broke my heart
You tore it right in two
But know no matter where you go
You’ll take one half with you
I know one day that you’ll come back
And once again we’ll meet
I’ll be waiting there for you
And sweep you off your feet
No matter how much you push me away
I’ll keep on asking till you say ‘okay’
And you stay with me. Girl –
Please…
Stay.
I was crying by the end of the second verse.
Shortly after that, I had to pull over to the side of the road, where I bawled my eyes out for ten minutes straight.
Hearing him sing those words was like a knife in my heart… even after all those years.
77
According to Derek’s Wikipedia page, Inward Spiral didn’t last too long. The cover band thing was good for local frat parties, but they didn’t want to hear the band’s original songs, and Derek had bigger ambitions. After plowing through numerous local guitarists and drummers, Derek and Ryan dissolved Inward Spiral… and then Derek went and did exactly what he’d said he would do.
He convinced British guitarist Killian Lee to move to America and join him and Ryan.
Then they recruited some absolutely batshit insane, 98-pound punk-rock girl with a mohawk to play the drums. They rechristened themselves Bigger and recorded their first album, Bigger Than Yours.
It did well on the college charts. ‘Girl, Please Stay’ actually made it into the Billboard Top 20, but fizzled out at number 18. Meanwhile they toured throughout the Southeast, opened for much larger acts, and recorded their second album, Bigger Is Better.
That was the one that hit like gangbusters.
Four songs in the top ten.
Two of them reached number one, with a third on the way.
At least half of them were about me.
And that was just the hits. There were a lot more references in the songs that never got released as singles.
It was pretty freaky walking down the street in New York City and hearing songs blaring from radios – songs whose lyrics contained exact words Derek had said to me, and that I had said to him.
And while some of the songs were wistful and pained, others were angry. Pissed-off.
Occasionally enraged.
It was uncomfortable.
Actually, it was excruciating. At least for the first couple of weeks. And then I became numb to it, and they just became background noise. Then they dropped out of the top ten and went off constant rotation.
But every so often, I would go a week without hearing one of their songs – and then a car would go by with its window down, or I’d walk past an apartment in my building playing the radio, and I’d hear Derek’s voice and it was an unexpected jolt of pain all over again.
Meanwhile the band embarked on a short European tour, then followed it up with a much larger American tour. They started selling out stadiums. They appeared on every late night show there was.
But they never gave a print interview. Wikipedia speculated that it was because Bigger Than Yours got a bunch of two and three star reviews in national magazines, if they got reviewed at all. Spin snarkily referenced Derek and Ryan’s origins, referring to Bigger as ‘the best cover band in Athens who quit their dayjobs… and probably shouldn’t have.’
Spin, and every other rock magazine in existence, lived to regret those words.
And so it went, the band ignoring the print media, and the print media alternately dissing them and slobbering over them… until a girl from California named Shanna Williams met an editor at Rolling Stone at a party, and told him about a roommate she’d had at the University of Georgia…
…and now here I was on a plane bound for Los Angeles.
78
I was remembering all these things on the flight to LAX.
I was replaying them all in my head as I got my bag from the luggage claim and hailed a taxi outside.
And I was trembling with fear… and maybe something else… when the cabbie dropped me off outside of the hotel.
It was a new place. Fancy shmancy. Called the Dubai.
It looked like a fitting place for rock stars. Lamborghinis and Porsches out front… red velvet carpet… valets in white suits… a cavernous lobby of black and white marble trimmed with gold, trying hard to look like a fever dream out of 1001 Arabian Nights.