March 27, 2023 by Lucia Birnby (‘23)
Based on the bestselling novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, the TV adaptation of Daisy Jones & the Six debuted on Amazon Prime Video on March 3rd, 2023, and has remained number one for the entirety of its run. Also turning heads is the accompanying album, Aurora, produced by Blake Mills, with the help of songwriters including Phoebe Bridgers and Marcus Mumford. After 18 months of “band camp’ and preparation, the fictional rock album–performed by the cast members Riley Keough (Elvis’s granddaughter!), Sam Claflin, Suki Waterhouse, and more–has finally come to life.
The entire storyline is inspired by the inner workings of 70’s rock bands. Reid originally took specific influence from Fleetwood Mac, and although most of the songs on the album have been changed from the novel, and not every track sounds like 70’s rock, there are some on which the connection is certainly hard to miss. “Look At Us Now (Honeycomb)” clearly takes influence from “The Chain,” the seventh track of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 Rumors album. The over 5-minute track featuring kick drum and guitar led up to an almost minute-long solo. Those factors along with repetitive lyrics throughout make you feel like you’re listening to a true 70’s rock song.
As is expected with an album written for a TV show though, the lyrics on this track are underwritten and overly similar to each other. Sam Claflin (as Billy Dunne) starts with: “I don’t know who I am, baby, baby, baby/Do you know who you are? Is it out of our hands?” There’s no symbolism and no deeper meaning to the lyrics. I do think however that this isn’t totally unintentional–it shows very clearly what Dunne is like as a songwriter before Daisy (Keough) comes into the picture, and it makes the addition of her to the rest of the album that much more drastic—which is exactly what Reid conveyed in her novel.
“Let Me Down Easy” and “Regret Me” are both full of driving guitar baselines and sudden melody shifts, with Dunne and Jones harmonizing—in the same way that you hear Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham do in any of Fleetwood Mac’s top hits. The symbolism in these songs is much more evident, following the storyline of Daisy’s influence as she and Billy start writing songs together. In “Let Me Down Easy”, Billy sings, “I could see us waving in the distance/Like a mirage on sand”—a step up from any of his lines in “Look At Us Now (Honeycomb).”
“Regret Me”, a song written by Daisy about Billy, is full of rage. She takes shots at him through lyrics like, “you couldn’t handle your liquor and it seems you can’t handle the truth,” and, “so go ahead and regret me but I’m beating you to it, dude.” Making the man who wronged her sing these lyrics about himself feels very reminiscent of “Silver Springs” from the Rumors (Super Deluxe) album, in which Buckingham repeatedly sings the lyrics Nicks wrote about him: “you’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.”
Overall, although Aurora did not stay true to Reid’s novel and does have a few skips, it deserves recognition for how good it accomplishes what needs to be done. It helps tell the story, it shows the original influence that Reid took from Fleetwood Mac and other hit 70’s bands, and it’s catchy. It leaves you wanting more and keeps you excited for the next episode that will give the exact backstory to each song. Plus, knowing every actor of the band actually put 18 months’ worth of time and effort into learning how not only to play their instruments but play them together in a band, makes the album even cooler.