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wasn't worried. By that time the Kydds’ name had been heard outside of Leyborough. Clubs in other cities wanted something fresh, a band that had made it big coming from a place where no band had a prayer of ever making it big. Their first single, Peyton's “Cry My Tears Away,” backed with Seth's “Dig Your Man,” climbed the English charts of 1963 like a carnival bell hit by a strongman's mallet.
    â€œCry My Tears Away” was the source of the first huge blowup between Peyton and Seth. They'd bickered amiably and not so amiably over the merits of various songs, sparred for the position of lead guitar, even once had a tussle that brought Peyton's mother to the bedroom door, knocking worriedly. That one had turned out to be about a particular Chuck Berry song they wanted to cover; Seth felt the vocals should be handled in a particular way, a way with which Peyton vehemently disagreed. There had also been a dust-up during which Dennis, their drummer, had had to pull them off each other—but everyone had been drunk that night. “Cry My Tears Away” was the first thing that nearly broke up the Kydds.
    It was a pretty love song, a very pretty love song that would no doubt flutter the heartstrings of every little girl who heard it. It was catchy, almost too catchy, so that you'd find yourself humming it hours after you had vowed to put it out of your mind. (Harold told them there was a German phrase for this phenomenon, one that roughly translated as “earworm.") However—as Seth pointed out the first time Peyton played it for him, and never ceased to point out for the rest of his life— it had no edge.
    Why should a band release as its first single a song that had no edge? What would prevent the Kydds from sinking traceless into the morass of sweet-ballad bands, bunches of nice boys who wrote love songs, damp-knicker bands as Seth derisively dubbed them? Why should they disappear before they'd even had a chance to start? Why not set out with an edge?
    â€œBecause no one who hears my song ever forgets it! ” cried Peyton. They were in Harold's living room, where they could argue as loudly as they liked without parental interference. Harold lurked in the kitchenette, close enough both to eavesdrop and to keep an eye on his breakables. “No one will forget it once they've heard it on the radio , once they've bought the single , don't you see? And they won't forget us either, they'll buy the record and they'll listen to ‘dig Your Man,’ it's a great, great song—"
    â€œFuck you.” Seth made as if to walk out of the flat, but stopped when he saw that Peyton would not pursue him. “ Your song is bloody unforgettable, my song's a nice addition to the record. How about, my song'll get us noticed because it doesn't sound just like a hundred others?"
    â€œNeither does mine,” said Peyton, “and you know it. It sounds a little like the hundred others, but there's a difference, and everyone will hear it, and buy it."
    â€œShit."
    â€œYou know I'm right."
    â€œI'm going out for a bottle."
    It went on like that for days, and they said things they regretted (or Peyton did—it's difficult to know if Seth was ever capable of regretting his own actions), but of course “Cry My Tears Away” made the A-side of the single. Even more significant, Seth and Peyton discovered a formula that would get them through the next twenty-odd years: a great blowout of a fight made them appreciate each other even more afterwards. There was no one else in either of their lives to whom they could say those sorts of things, and certainly no one who would forgive them for it, even thank them eventually—for it could not be denied that, through fighting and cajoling and sometimes pure coercion, they improved each other musically. They honed themselves on each other. The more they saw of the music business, the more they realized how rare such a partnership