And it’s crazy, because like, at the same time Bob and my mom were starting to get serious, I was going through my own sort of whirlwind relationship stuff with Mandy.

She had decided at that point that she probably wasn’t a lesbian, and so we got back together, and it was good for a while—like, it was really, really good—but then we just started having major problems—like, deep, unfixable problems—and there was a lot of love there, but it started to become clear to both of us that like, something just wasn’t right.

The first sort of crack started to show when Mandy showed me this new track from her upcoming album—this was Heartache/Heartbreak—and she asked me to be on it. I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about this, but the track was “North Star”—you know, the one she ended up doing with Brett Andrews—and Mandy came to me with it, and she was like: Hey, my people think it would be a good idea for us to collaborate on something together, you know, like, a love song that we could perform together at awards shows and all that shit. And I wasn’t opposed to the idea necessarily, but I listened to the song, and I was just like: Whoa. LOL. This might be the worst song I’ve ever heard. I think I even said that to her. Halfway through the demo, I just started laughing and I was like: Turn it off, turn it off, and she was really hurt by that.

I mean, I don’t think I was being that much of a dick—it’s not like she wrote the song. It was probably one of those Australian dudes. I forget which one. I think it was like, Bogz or Da-LITER or someone like that, you know, one of those “New Aussie” people—but Mandy felt like it was a personal attack on her because she really liked it and she thought I was judging her for her taste, which like, I totally wasn’t. I just thought the song was bullshit.