1. Making Magic
Making Magic
MARY
“Stop, stop, stop!” Winifred Kew announced. “God damn it, Barry. You’re off.”
He wasn’t off, Winifred. Another day producing a band on the verge of stardom and dealing with their diva frontwoman.
Playground’s problem wasn’t their sound or cohesion.
It was that everyone had fucked everyone and Winnie had main character energy in the biggest way.
Unfortunately, she was wildly talented, and I loved writing and producing for her.
I glanced to my right at their manager, AJ, looking like he might die.
He wasn’t managing anyone today. Winnie was out for blood with her ex, Barry the Drummer.
His cardinal sin? Daring to mention he was bringing his wife to an industry event.
They’d been broken up for years, but she never got over it.
We were running short on studio time and trying to record the most important single of their careers—an angry pop banger destined for Europe’s foremost song competition, UniVox. Of course, none of that mattered if we couldn’t channel Winifred’s rage into something productive.
Taking in a deep breath, AJ hit the call button. “Winifred, can we just try again without Barry and the track? We don’t have to do it all live.”
“Yes, but I don’t think he’s even bloody well managed to nail the beat on the backing track!” She glared in his direction before spinning back around.
“Winifred,” Alicia groaned. “Let’s just kick ass, okay? Focus!”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears. “No way! I’m so fucking done!”
“Winifred!” Barry called. “Can we just not—”
“No. You know how I feel when you talk about her! You’re trying to throw me off—just like now.”
“Oh my God it does not matter!” Clarice Portan, their lead guitarist, urged. “Can we just finish the single and move the fuck on? We don’t have time or money to waste here.”
Winifred threw her sheet music up dramatically. “You would defend him! I swear to God I’m gone—”
AJ buzzed again, trying to temper Winifred’s tantrum, “If you leave, Winnie, you’re in breach of contract.”
“Then, I fucking quit! Fuck you all! This is a joke!”
She raced off. I stood to pace. AJ banged his head on the edge of the board.
“It’s all gone. All over!” I panicked as the band argued on the other side of the booth. “Goodbye UniVox! God, it’s so stupid that I even care this much!”
“You care because you want revenge for missing out last year,” AJ said. “And I feel awful, you know? The song deserves everything.”
“It’s just a pop song, AJ.” I pulled at the roots of my hair. “No one is going to die over it.”
His eyes softened as I met his gaze. “It’s okay to admit it means something.”
“Oh, stop it with the puppy dog eyes and sympathy, mate! You’re going to make me sick!”
“What? I just want to see you get justice. This is your song—”
“And if we lose all our studio time, it doesn’t matter, does it?” I said. “It’s just a song. I will be able to pay the bills—”
“‘Justice’ is the song, Marit. You know it and so does everyone in this place.”
Barry chimed, “We’re losing time here. We’ve got an idea and I think we can still salvage this.”
I crossed my fingers and braced. Please don’t suggest that Alicia sing lead. The song is all wrong for her.
I buzzed the band back. “I will pay for another slot. We need to find a new singer. I can’t get someone here in the next ninety minutes. Sorry.”
Alicia stepped up, “Our idea is you can sing it.”
“I don’t… I’m not singing lead, Li. I’m a fucking guitarist.”
“Who has a killer voice,” Barry chimed. “Why not you? You sold us on this song. It is your baby.”
“Yeah, well, It’s not the right song for me.”
“Come on and try it. Please!” Alicia pouted and made prayer hands.
I buzzed a last time. “Fine. Your pleading worked this time—and this time only.”
Alicia jumped excitedly.
“I think it’s a good idea,” AJ shrugged.
I lifted the cans from the music stand and adjusted the mic to my much shorter stature.
The snicker elicited from the band eased my worries.
AJ gave a thumbs up. I nodded at the band.
Barry counted us in. I hadn’t performed in a studio in the past few years beyond a demo.
My hands shook and my stomach churned. Before the chorus’s first bar, I called it off.
“I’m just not in the mood to do this upbeat song,” I said.
“It’s not upbeat, though,” Alicia said. “It’s a ‘fuck you’ song.”
“Justice” was a fuck you song with an unmistakably hooky riff—one I wrote in no time while in my feelings over my previous UniVox failure.
I listened to Bea and Alicia and channeled my rage over my former mentor for burying the song that should have won last year’s UniVox along with all my hopes in a Stockholm trash heap.
I counted us in again, feeling better, but still not right.
I called back to AJ. “How much time do we have left?”
He checked. “Twenty minutes.”
I cringed. It was a three-minute song, but we barely nailed the first minute and were starting from square one.
“Sing it to Max. Sing it to him like every note is a dagger in his heart,” Clarice said.
The visual was curious, but anything was worth a shot.
“Fine,” I agreed. “I will try again, but… I am going to change a couple of things. Play along like we’re in a jam session.”
Whether it was Clarice’s vindictive visualization or the press of time, it all came together. I sang my heart out, reaching the depths in the verses and soaring in the chorus. But my grungiest, most authentic bit came with verse two.
You called it fame, but it was a cage
Now while I’m on center stage
You’re stuck reading from my page.
You’re yesterday’s news
Well, I think you’re gonna lose
I channeled the feelings of a fifteen-year-old berated for eating too much, cutting her hair too short, and openly admitting I liked girls.
I thought about every time my manager threatened me for daring to challenge his authority.
I remembered the feeling of being forced to dance suggestively on a stage in a way that made me feel ever more disconnected from my body.
In that verse, I unlocked power I didn’t know my voice possessed.
As the last note rang, I finally looked at the band, realizing I’d been singing to the clock above the studio window for the past three minutes exclusively. No one said anything. I wondered if I’d hallucinated it all until I surmised, they wanted my opinion first.
“It was fucking brilliant, yeah?” I asked.
“Fuck yeah it was!” Alicia said.
“Tits!” Clarice giggled.
“That’s the take.”
AJ buzzed. “Thank God, because we’re out of time in 2 minutes.”
“We should have at least fifteen!” I protested.
“I lied. I knew you would freak out!” AJ admitted.
That day, we created the track that would launch me from burnout poptart-turned-background-player into starlet again at forty-two. We made magic where we didn’t even know it existed.