My Life in Music Part 2: Daniella

I wrote this song in 2005. I had just started law school and was meeting all sorts of new people. It was the first time I had lived more than 100 miles from my parents and my childhood/college friends. I was making new friends and generally having a great time, but I still felt lonely.

One night a big group of my new friends went to this gigantic dance club in San Antonio called "Cowboys." This place is ridiculous and was nothing like the type of place I would have gone to in college. This place had (probably still has) two floors of bars, a mechanical bull and an indoor rodeo arena for like, an actual rodeo. My group was all out on the giant, main dancefloor. After about ten country standards (which I did not know how to dance to), the band left the stage, and they started playing hip-hop. I was drunk enough at this point that I felt ready to get down and show people what was up.

Soon enough I found myself dancing pretty goddamn dirty with this very sexy girl. I had noticed her at school and knew she was not just good looking, but smart as well. After a few dances we go to the bar and have some drinks while the country band is back on. I don't remember what we talked about, but she was laughing at my jokes. I remember thinking, "This is going well."

Then I went to the restroom. I was thinking about the girl. Was this going to be a one night stand or was she girlfriend material? Should I keep it light, or try to have a meaningful conversation somewhere the music wasn't so loud? Or maybe I should try to talk to another girl. After all, I just got to this city, no sense in getting tied down so quickly. But this girl is soooo sexy, and she clearly is into me. But if she's into me, how smart can she really be? Maybe she's just trying to make me think she's into me, so she can laugh about it with her friends and go home with some cowboy. I started feeling breathless and claustrophobic, like the black tile walls were closing in to crush me. I looked in the mirror and my face was ashen. My drunken euphoria was replaced by this formless, suffocating fear. I went into the stall and sat down on the toilet seat, and tried to calm down. I thought:

"You cannot fuck this up by getting all up in your head. You are too old for this shit. Go talk to her. Ask her if she wants to come home with you. The worst she can do is say no, and if so, so be it. Don't sit in this stall like a pussy. Get up right now and do it."

I got up, washed my hands, fixed my hair, smiled into the mirror. "Let's do this," I said to myself. And I walked out of the rest room, and then out of the bar, and into my car, and I drove away alone, hating myself the whole way.

When I got home I was too disgusted with myself to sleep. I kept thinking about how I could have been with her right that second, instead of alone in my apartment. Then I thought about how she must feel. She's probably just as lonely as I am. I seem so into her, spending all night dancing and chatting her up, going out of my way to make her feel comfortable, make her laugh, make her know she is pretty. Then I just disappear--probably to go laugh with the boys about how dumb she is for thinking I like her. I did exactly to her what my stupid fear soaked brain thought she might do to me. What a piece of shit I am.

But some good did come from that shitty night. I started writing a song from the perspective of a girl trying to get close to ME. Someone trying to get past the mask of indifference I wear to hide from the world. But I didn't want to write a song about a guy, I'd have to make ME the unknowable girl in the song.

Then I (the singer) get to be guy who can see its just a mask. And no one will ever know that the scared girl I'm singing about is me.