‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I study violin at the Conservatorium, so I’m pretty stuck in that little world, I guess. I mean, I’d like to know more about it.’
‘Alice can teach you. She’s a good teacher.’
‘Yeah, she’s already given me some Bruce Springsteen and Kate Bush records to borrow, to study, you know. And The Gaslight … something?’
‘Anthem?’
‘Yeah, The Gaslight Anthem. I’ve just been reading their lyrics so far. They’re so good, better than poetry.’
‘You’re a quick learner.’
‘Yeah, hopefully. I mean, hopefully I have some different things to teach her too. There’s this group I like that does concerts in the caves in the Blue Mountains — it’s pretty unreal to watch music being performed in there. Hey, you should come as well.’
‘Yeah, for sure. Honestly, if you start hanging out with Alice, you get stuck with me as well, we’re kind of a package deal.’
‘There’s got to be a better way of saying that. You’re like a bonus.’
The other half of my package deal comes back from the bar and Justin hugs her for half a second, then raises his drink to both of us in salute. It’s like he’s never been out of the house before, but I can’t help but like him.
‘A toast to … rock ’n’ roll?’ he says. ‘Nah, that’s too cheesy.’
‘To new beginnings,’ Alice says.
‘Perfect,’ I say.
We toast, plastic cups crinkling and crushing up against each other.
Justin, I think, you have no idea what you’re about to get yourself into.
Tim
I write the set list in texta and tape it to the floor as I always do. We only have a few songs so far, just enough to fill the twenty-five minutes we’ve got, so there’s not much messing about deciding what to play.
I bash out a couple of power chords to make sure the guitar is plugged in and good to go as the other guys file on stage. Brandon is as pale as a ghost so I give him a bit of a man hug as he plugs his guitar in, then grip the microphone stand and lean forward.
‘Hey, everyone, my name’s Tim. Our band doesn’t have a name yet, so if you can think of a good one, come up and let me know after. This is our first show ever, so … congratulations! You’re here to see history being made.’
People laugh and clap, some even cheer. Being in a rock band is the only place in the world where you get rewarded for your arrogance.
‘This first song goes out to the girl I love, the girl who saved me,’ I say. ‘I gave her a mixtape today with a secret message in the first word of every song title. I don’t know if she’s got it yet, but that’s OK.’
Then, like an engine roaring when you turn the key in the ignition, we’re off.
Within a few seconds I know it’s going to go well because there’s just something about the four of us together that makes sense. Being in The Nits was the most frustrating thing, because everyone in the band was really talented but as a group we were way less than the sum of all the parts, always at each other’s throats, wanting to pull in different directions, everyone desperate to put their own stamp on what we were doing. Everything was a hassle.
With these guys, I want James to drum a bit faster so I just give him a look and he instantly picks up the pace and everyone falls in. Sometimes things just click and you don’t have to fight any more.
Sometimes after banging your head against a wall for so long, you find yourself in open air and see that the wall has just fallen down in front of you.
This is it. These are the moments you live for.
Mandy
Secret message! What?
I rifle through my satchel and narrowly avoid spilling last night’s underwear all over the floor of the pub, which isn’t something I want to do. I slow down and push the clothes aside carefully to dig out the CD.
I read the first words of the song titles: You’re. The. Kind. Of. Girl. I. Write. Songs. About.
Words fail me.
These few seconds of realisation make this stretch of time seem momentous, the start of it all. Suddenly I don’t care how many hours I sat on the couch watching terrible TV, or wiping spit off a counter at a dreadful sandwich store, if all those moments somehow led to this one.
I remember what Tim said that night in Ettalong about who he writes songs for and I realise I’m the something better he seeks with his songs, his ideal audience. I’m the target for those burning arrows. The songs don’t completely make sense unless they find their audience, unless they find me.
All those days I came home from school or from work, hating how trapped I felt; and all those nights I went out looking for some perfect band to make sense of my world, knowing that I needed change in my life but not knowing how quickly change could come. Not realising that inside I had the strength to change all along.
One person, one moment, can change things forever. Perhaps I’ve always known this. After all, it only takes the three chords and the two and a half minutes of a great pop song to break your heart or to make you feel invincible.
I think my favourite part of every gig is that frozen moment at the start when you’re glancing at your watch, wondering why the minutes are ticking by so slowly, waiting for the band to come on stage. Then someone comes on, but it’s a false alarm — they’re fiddling with the microphone stand or making one last adjustment to the cables, checking the guitars are plugged in, that the cymbals are at the right level. People start to talk again, to turn away from the stage, and phones come out of pockets. The energy dips, and then …
And then the lights go down, the fog machine billows smoke across the room, people push forward, the crowd rises and swells as one. The anticipation, the possibility, in those couple of seconds, it’s immense.
There is always something better and it’s out there waiting for you. You just have to know where to look.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Songs that inspired You’re the Kind of Girl I Write Songs About
Arcade Fire, ‘No Cars Go’
Bat for Lashes, ‘Laura’
Hüsker Dü, ‘Books About UFOs’
Iggy Pop, ‘The Passenger’
Kate Bush, ‘Cloudbusting’
The Lawrence Arms, ‘Beautiful Things’
Lykke Li, ‘Melodies & Desires’
M83, ‘Graveyard Girl’
Matt and Kim, ‘Let’s Go’
MGMT, ‘Kids’
The Mountain Goats, ‘Dance Music’
My Morning Jacket, ‘Librarian’
The Only Ones, ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’
Perfume Genius, ‘Hood’
The Replacements, ‘Achin’ to Be’
sleepmakeswaves, ‘Something Like Avalanches’
The Smiths, ‘Rubber Ring’
The Strokes, ‘Reptilia’
Tegan and Sara, ‘Nineteen’
Trembling Blue Stars, ‘Idyllwild’
Veronica Falls, ‘Teenage’
The xx, ‘Angels’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, to you, dear reader: thank you.
To Bec, thank you for being so wonderful. Long may you ragdoll.
Thank you to friends who have supported my work: Erin Olejniczak and family, Helena, Jaz, Nicole, Meg, Erin, Jia, Tabby, Luca, Jaz, Nathan and B-dog, Nomy nom: thank you all and please remember to slap me if I ever start a sentence with ‘As a writer …’
Granny Marg, thanks for your support and thanks for still buying every newspaper I have a story in.
Thank you to the team at HarperCollins for their enthusiasm and belief in this book and for their hard work, especially Lisa Berryman, Amanda Diaz, Tim Miller, Hazel Lam, Rachel Dennis and Nicola O’Shea for editing.
Finally, to all the musicians that have inspired me: I can never thank you enough.
Copyright
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 20
15
This edition published in 2015
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Daniel Herborn 2015
The right of Daniel Herborn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Herborn, Daniel, author.
You’re the kind of girl I write songs about / Daniel Herborn.
978 0 7322 9950 7 (pbk.)
978 1 4607 0329 8 (ePub)
For young adults.
Love stories.
Musicians – Australia – Fiction.
Gap years – Fiction.
A823.4
Cover design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image by Michelle Lartigue
You’re the Kind of Girl I Write Songs About Page 21