Harlan didn’t understand then. He thought Rickey meant metaphorically—a little edge, a little grit, a hook that snagged the ear and didn’t let go.
“Some.”
The studio was a converted garage in East Nashville. For two weeks, Rickey worked him like a mule. “Faster,” he’d say. “That bridge? Trash it. Put a beat behind it. No one wants to hear about your dead well, they want to hear about getting drunk and getting laid.” countryboy crack
Harlan did a line. Then another. He wrote three songs that night. They were garbage, but he didn’t know it then. He felt like a god in a pearl-snap shirt. Harlan didn’t understand then
The spiral was slow at first, then fast as a rockslide. He missed a show in Memphis because he was too strung out to leave the hotel. He blamed the flu. He screamed at Jade when she showed up at a backstage door, worried. “You’re not my mama,” he said. She left crying, and he didn’t call. For two weeks, Rickey worked him like a mule
And that was the only crack worth chasing.