Danielle O’Malley, Managing Editor
“Daisy Jones and the Six,” was written by Taylor Jenkins Reid and published in March of 2019. The fictional book is written in an interview format, as members of the most popular band in the 70s reflect on their upbringing, rise to popularity and ultimate fall. From personality clashes, forbidden and secret love to drugs, the band was doomed from the start.
Exactly four years later in March of 2023 premiered the TV show adaptation of “Daisy Jones and the Six.” Starring Riley Keough and Sam Claflin as Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne, the show depicts the actual events paired in tandem with the interviews, even including the songs from the book. However, the show did not come without a few changes from the book, some so major that some readers couldn’t bring themselves to watch.
For starters, the biggest and most obvious difference between the book and show, was that Pete Loving does not exist in the show. Well, he does, but he’s not part of the band for very long. In the book, Pete is the bassist who brings his brother Eddie along to be the rhythm guitarist when the previous one, Chuck Williams, died in Vietnam. Eddie elects to do the interviews whereas his brother does not, however, he remains bassist for the band from start to end. In the show, Pete was part of the band when it began, but quit before they went to California as he wanted to be a dentist. Eddie isn’t his brother either (his last name is Roundtree), he was part of the band from the beginning and is forced by Billy to move to bass when Pete leaves. Billy then moves to rhythm guitar, which creates the initial tension between the two that is seen throughout the show.
A smaller difference is the way Billy and Camila meet. In the book, Billy meets Camila at a bar while performing at a wedding. In the show, they meet at a local laundromat where she pretends to not know who he is. Additionally, Eddie knew her from childhood saying, “how could you not fall in love with her.” This was again, to create more tension and animosity between him and Billy.
Teddy Price, a vital character in producing all of the band’s albums, was introduced in two very different ways. Teddy himself discovers the band at a club on the strip and decides to take a chance on them in the book. In the show, the band has to fight for his time and attention after Billy randomly runs into him at a grocery store.
In both the show and book, Daisy Jones was never part of the band for the first album. However, the way in which she formally joins the band is vastly different between the two. In the book, Daisy performs a duet with Billy on the song “Honeycomb” for The Six’s second album, “SevenEightNine.”
After the song is well received by the public, Daisy opens for them at a concert and is finally welcomed into the band. In the show, The Six only puts out one album without her and Billy writes “Honeycomb” as the lead single for their second album. When Daisy hears it during a meeting at Teddy Price’s house, she’s intrigued and asked to change the lyrics based on what she thinks the song needs. She’s then invited to record the song with The Six, and according to Billy, that would be that and they would have nothing to do with her ever again. He hated her changes and began to hate the song (which fans think was him giving himself excuses to not admit his growing feelings for her) despite it charting number one. Because the song blew up, The Six were invited to perform at a festival in Hawaii where they also invited Daisy to perform only “Honeycomb” with them. Daisy came onstage early and performed with the band for nearly their entire set even though Billy was furious with her. After the festival he says in an interview that “Honeycomb” was a one time thing and Daisy will not be joining them permanently or for any songs in the future. It isn’t until he talks with his wife and hosts a party which Daisy attends that he finally changes his mind and lets her join the band.
These are only a few of the many changes from the book to the TV adaptation. Although the relationships and themes did not change, the way in which things played out were manipulated for the sake of condensing the book into ten episodes, each only an hour long. This tactic is seen in many TV/film adaptations, but the question is, would you be able to get over the changes?
