Wonderland // McFly

Was This Supposed to Happen?

January 6, 2010

The writing session that I unfortunately had to go to, and stay for two days with all of McFly and Dallas Austin, was completely unsuccessful.

No songs were written.

No one even tried to write. I thought they were trying, but I realized that Danny was just holding his guitar because he was used to having it under his arm, not because he intended on writing a song.

It was a total waste of time.

And I was mad.

So I told the boys, with or without Dallas, today they best be up early, and not drunk or hungover, because they were writing at least one song by the time the sun went down tonight.

Even Fletch was here. That's how bad the boys really needed these songs to come along, because if they didn't, the album release date would soon have to be pushed to 2011, and that would mean the boys would have gone three years without putting out an album. That's too long, according to Fletch, and as of right now Fletch was the only person I trusted.

As far as I knew, no one other than Tom knew about Dougie's desire to quit the band. And Tom was acting like he didn't know, so I did too. But the truth is, after this album, everything I knew and was certain in could disappear, and so I suppose I wanted to pretend it wasn't true either.

We'd now been here all day, and Tom, of course, had taken my scolding and turned it into determination. He wrote a song.

I didn't say it was a great song, but it was a song.

The song was finished by the end of the day. All the parts had been recorded at least in rough form and the song wasn't bad but it was...

Weird.

It was nothing like anything the boys had written before. It was the prime definition of bubblegum pop and it was about vampires.

I mean come on, just write another song about Gi, Tom.

They decided to call it, Party Girl.

I could tell the whole time the boys were writing Tom was not satisfied with this song. I was certain by the end of the day he would scrap it, but I didn't stop him, because I was hoping, even if they did scrap the song, this would spark some type of creative motivation.

And when all the recordings were finished, Tom just slowly walked up to Fletch and I and sighed.

"You aren't satisfied." I say. He shakes his head, and puts his hand on the back of his neck, like it's starting to hurt.

"Tom, I think it's great." Fletch says. But I knew didn't mean it. Sure, the song was fine, but if the boys didn't like it then they shouldn't put it out. The number one rule of being an artist of any kind is that you should like what you put out into the world. I had learned that much.

"Fletch, stop. You guys have to do what you think is right."

"Yeah, but we need songs." Danny pipes up from the back.

"They do." Fletch says.

"So put out songs you don't like? That's counter productive." I say.

"It's a grower." Fletch shrugs. "The song will grow on you. That's what pop songs these days are like."

"Alright well then they aren't making pop songs for 'these days'. They're making McFly music and if this isn't it, then it's not it." I say. How could Fletch be so stupid?

"Lilly, you're a secondary manager." Fletch says.

"So?" I ask.

"So pipe down." He says, completely serious.

I look away. Ass wipe. Fine. If that's what they want to do, they can do it. I'm done trying to be the voice of reason.

So the boys kept writing. They put Party Girl to the side and started a new song, but unfortunately, Dallas walked in halfway through, and I was pretty positive that whatever work the boys were doing now was going to come to a screeching halt.

"Dallas!" Harry exclaims, as all the boys get up and crowd him. Probably hoping he'll sweep them away in some kind of a tornado of celebrities, parties and clubs. Then I would be left to clean up the rubble.

"Boys, I got great news!" Dallas exclaims. I stay back. "Ever heard of Taio Cruz?"

"Yeah. the guy who wrote the Dynamite song." Harry says. 

"Well he wants to collaborate with you guys!" Dallas smiles.

"What? Really?" Danny asks.

"Absolutely! He wants to come here and write a song with you guys. And you can put it your album!"

"Well that's great!" Tom says.

"Oh, that's not all. We got you a song!"

What the actually hell was he talking about.

"What?" Dougie asks.

"It's called iF U C Kate, but get this, the 'i' in 'if' is lowercase and the 'f' is uppercase, and 'you', 'see' are just the letters, so it's just a sneaky way of saying fuck." Dallas smiles.

What is going on?

"Right." Harry says, seeming kind of confused.

I know. I know, I said I wouldn't get involved, but this is just mind boggling.

"Dallas." I say, getting up and walking forward. They all turn to look at me. Dallas has a big smile on his face. "I know you're a professional and the boys love to tell me how great you are, but...they write their own songs. They always have."

Dallas' smile fades immediately.

"Lilly, is it?"

"It is." I say. Here we go.

"Lilly, I don't think you understand, I'm a professional. These are my boys." He says, putting a hand on Dougie and Tom's backs. "I know what's best for them."

Okay, I've hand enough.

"That's where you're wrong." I smile at Dallas. "These are my boys. And I know what's best for them." 

I was done chasing McFly's shadow when it would always be a step ahead of me. So I grab my bag, and leave.

//