No One’s Gonna Love You (More Than I Do)

My godfather was Band of Horses’ tour manager. I would go to soundchecks with my mom and jump around to my favorite song by them, called “Is There a Ghost.” That was my song. My mom used to sing it and change the words to “Lana could sleep / Lana could sleeeep”. In  middle school I was introduced to their song  “No One’s Gonna Love You.” My favorite line in that song is “You are the ever-living ghost of what once was.” 

In the latter part of 2017, I moved from the house I grew up in in the flatlands of West Hollywood to the hills of Los Feliz. I was starting middle school at an all-girls school, so we moved across town so that I could get there without waking up at five a.m. every day. 

I remember the wall in the guest room–which must have been about fifteen feet high–the wall that was coated with CDs. I never really went through the CDs. They were my dad’s. They were kind of just there. He didn’t live with us anymore, but his CDs, old guitars, and Beatles poster—that read “Let It Be,” with pictures of John, Paul, George and Ringo in its four corners—still did. His music in our house, without him there, was like the “ever-living ghost of what once was.” 

One day, the CDs weren’t in their place on the wall. I asked how we were gonna replicate my father’s shelving and CD organization at the new house. My mom looked at me and told me that we weren’t. She was going to sell the CDs. To her, they didn’t hold any value. She wanted the vinyl, but she got rid of the wall–his wall. 

It has been seven years since then, and my dad is dead. At 53, his muscles stopped working slowly until he couldn’t breathe anymore. He was in pain. He had forgotten everything: who was who, what year it was, how old he was, where he lived, or if he was still married. He never forgot me, though, and he never forgot music. 

My dad’s name is Franz Fleischli. He was in A and R at RCA in the ‘90s. He scouted and signed a lot of amazing artists. He was an encyclopedia of music. That’s who he was. He met my mom on her first day working at RCA and asked her out. He took her to a garage rock show where everyone had to dress up in formal ballroom wear. He donned the title “The Revolutionaire”—his anarchist alias. 

I never got to know him like that. The Franz I knew wasn’t a crazy punk guy. The Franz I knew smelled like weed, making it always a very comforting smell before I even knew what it was. (Growing up, I often referred to it as “concert smell.”) The Franz I knew played “Laura” by Girls for me after our Sunday morning farmers market trips. He played “Discotech” by Young Love at nights when I was dressed up as Cinderella. We danced together, we snacked together, we sang together. 

This was before he got really sick. Most of my recent memories with him were trying to get him to engage and converse with us. My aunt Amy and I would take him to get sushi. It was his favorite. But the real thing that got him to wake up from his spell for a moment was music. I played Sonic Youth for him, or Guided By Voices, and his eyes would sparkle–even if just for a moment. He couldn’t remember much, but he remembered the lyrics. He would grab the phone from me, pull it really close to his ear, and sing along. 

In 2020, my mom started making me listen to my dad’s favorite albums, I started with 13 by Fugazi, to Bad Brains’ I Against I, to Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. I listened to their shared favorites, like Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation. One day, I found the Girls album that has “Laura” on it and listened to it over and over. I started writing about the albums. Then I started posting my writing. Slowly I built Desperately Seeking Serious (the title is an homage to Madonna). I have been writing for it since I was fifteen years old. 

While Desperately Seeking Serious is an embodiment of myself and my passions, it is also an ode to my late father. It is the “ever-living ghost.” It would have never happened had my mom not pushed me to try and better understand my dad. I wanted to know him, but since that was an impossibility, music was the next best thing. Desperately Seeking Serious honors the memory of my dad and has continued to since his passing. It has memorialized his love for music, but it has also been a way for me to remember this music for him. At least I like to think of it that way. 

The funny thing about that is that I hate attaching music to people. I hate having to associate music with someone. Sometimes, it can be an amazing thing to hear a song and be transported for a moment to years back when you were with your friends driving around and singing the song at the top of your lungs with no care in the world. But other times, it just feels like you can never listen to that song again without remembering someone or something that you’d rather forget. 

My boyfriend of a few months has asked me about why I hesitate to listen to the playlist he made for me. I explain that I worry about attaching his music to him because if we break up, I won’t be able to listen to those songs again. (Granted, I’m already referring to the music as “his,” so I’ll admit that the logic is skewed). While I love to give music recommendations, I don’t love getting them for fear of the songs being shadowed by someone. It is almost like it can never be mine to enjoy alone, because it will always be attached to someone else. 

When we were trying to figure out where to spread my dad’s ashes, I offered up the idea of our old house. It had been the last place he could call “home.” My parents' friends told me that my parents would throw the best parties at the Kings Road house. Every week they hosted poker night, and watched movies or listened to music with their friends. 

My mom said we couldn’t leave his ashes there. That was where his sickness started. That is where his happiness had been overshadowed by ambulances and divorce. That is where he had all of his first seizures. I realized that anywhere that we end up leaving his ashes will be in the memory of somewhere from before I was even a thought. She said the house was “haunted.” 

I had never understood why she was so excited to move out of the house until then. It also likely explains why she was so adamant about getting rid of my dad’s CDs. His music would always represent him, but she wasn’t going to listen to them again. She couldn’t bring the ghost with us. According to her, no one really listens to CDs now anyway. 

It isn’t just her. I got all of my dad’s vinyl almost four years ago, and I still have barely touched it. Having his stuff is admitting that he’s gone. One day I will listen to all of his records. I am not ready yet. I am not ready to attach more music to someone who is gone. I am not ready to sit alone and know these albums aren’t truly mine. But one day I will listen to them, because I know that it isn’t bad to attach music to someone. At least he’s kind of there. The records prove that he was here. They are “the ever-living ghost of what once was.”