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Stay

I was crying by the end of the second verse

Shortly after that, I had to pull over to the side of the road, where I bawled ht

Hearing hi those words was like a knife in my heart… even after all those years

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According to Derek’s Wikipedia page, Inward Spiral didn’t last too long The cover band thing was good for local frat parties, but they didn’t want to hear the band’s original songs, and Derek had bigger auitarists and drummers, Derek and Ryan dissolved Inward Spiral… and then Derek went and did exactly what he’d said he would do

He convinced British guitarist Killian Lee to move to America and join him and Ryan

Then they recruited soirl with a er and recorded their first albuer Than Yours

It did well on the college charts ‘Girl, Please Stay’ actually made it into the Billboard Top 20, but fizzled out at nuhout the Southeast, opened for er Is Better

That was the one that hit like gangbusters

Four songs in the top ten

Two of them reached number one, with a third on the way

At least half of them were about me

And that was just the hits There were a lot les

It was pretty freaky walking down the street in New York City and hearing songs blaring fros whose lyrics contained exact words Derek had said to me, and that I had said to him

And while sory Pissed-off

Occasionally enraged

It was uncomfortable

Actually, it was excruciating At least for the first couple of weeks And then I becaround noise Then they dropped out of the top ten and went off constant rotation

But every so often, I would go a ithout hearing one of their songs – and then a car would go by with its n, or I’d walk past an apart the radio, and I’d hear Derek’s voice and it was an unexpected jolt of pain all over again

Meanwhile the band embarked on a short European tour, then followed it up with aout stadiuht show there was

But they never gave a print interview Wikipedia speculated that it was because Bigger Than Yours got a bunch of two and three star reviews in national ot reviewed at all Spin snarkily referenced Derek and Ryan’s origins, referring to Bigger as ‘the best cover band in Athens who quit their dayjobs… and probably shouldn’t have’

Spin, and every other rock ret those words

And so it went, the band ignoring the printtheirl fro Stone at a party, and told hiia…

…and now here I was on a plane bound for Los Angeles

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I was reht to LAX

I was replaying thee claim and hailed a taxi outside

And I was tre else… when the cabbie dropped me off outside of the hotel

It was a new place Fancy shmancy Called the Dubai

It looked like a fitting place for rock stars Lahinis and Porsches out front… red velvet carpet… valets in white suits… a cavernous lobby of black and whitehard to look like a fever dreahts