Free Love Songs for the Road by Farrah Taylor

more of that—sing about whatever’s on my mind, without worrying whether it’s going to work as a video or get radio play, you know?”
    “Listen, I can tell what you’re trying to do. You want to reinvent your style, to give your audience something that’s actually challenging.”
    “Right!” Ryan couldn’t believe that Marcus actually cared about her opinions on his music. “The only problem is, they’re there to see us play the songs they’ve known for years. They basically just come so they can drink and party with their friends.”
    “And you know this how, exactly?”
    “I don’t know, maybe by the deafening silence that followed the song?”
    “Well, it’s a new song, right?”
    “Yeah, very new.”
    “Maybe it’s not finished yet.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “That song is perfect.”
    “Yeah, maybe.” Ryan had no idea where this confidence came from, but somehow she felt comfortable telling Marcus exactly what she thought. He looked strong enough to handle it.
    “Well, how would you change it, then?”
    “That’s your job.” Ryan laughed. “I mean, I would have no idea, but…”
    “What?” Marcus leaned forward. He was actually waiting with bated breath, or so it seemed, to hear Ryan’s thoughts on the craft of songwriting.
    “Well, that song is personal, and it’s dark. Almost hopeless. And if you go that dark, you need to show a little glimmer of light, too.”
    “A glimmer of light?”
    “Yeah, like, if you lock the door, you need to unlock it, too. Show people a little hope.”
    “Who are you, Ryan Evans? Are you a rock critic, posing as a nanny?”
    “Nope, I’m just a nanny,” Ryan said. “But I’m an honest nanny.”
    She thought, Hopefully I’m not going to become a celebrity, wet T-shirt nanny.
    …
    Marcus tried his best not to show it, but Ryan’s critique had unnerved him. Ever since he’d come up with “I Lock the Door,” he had considered it one of the best songs he’d ever written. He knew he would never scale the musical heights of his heroes, guys like Springsteen, Bon Jovi, and Chris Martin from Coldplay—songwriters whose compositions would endure for decades, maybe even centuries. But with “I Lock the Door,” he thought he had gotten pretty close, for the first time ever.
    And as Ryan, his nanny for God’s sake, critiqued this precious gem that had sprung from his imagination, it had taken a superhuman feat of willpower not to get defensive. Except for Smitty, no one in his inner circle would have dared to give him songwriting advice. And if they had, he would have probably responded by asking just exactly how many number one hits they’d been responsible for (Marcus had written or co-written eleven), or how many triple-platinum albums they’d released (he’d put out four).
    Yes, the songs he’d written and performed, from the very beginning of his career, were hugely popular, had made him a multi-millionaire who never had to worry about a day job again. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when a critic, or a fan, or his nanny, told him his writing wasn’t good enough. It did hurt, just as much as it had when he’d started writing songs for his high school garage band in 1994, and just as much as it had a decade later, when his first album had sold millions while also being lambasted by writers from Rolling Stone , Spin , and the New York Times . More recently, Marcus had learned to grin and bear it, to take the inevitable bad reviews a bit more graciously, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
    It might have been an exaggeration to say that he liked hearing Ryan tell him his near-masterpiece of a song needed some lightening up, but he did like talking to her. She was honest, direct, and best of all, whip-smart. So many people near him had become yes men, willing to tell him what they thought he wanted to hear. But Ryan wasn’t censoring or second-guessing herself; she was simply being truthful. Marcus found himself not only trusting