Through her songwriting, Lucy Dacus acts as an emotional archaeologist. The Virginia-born musician has made a career of digging headfirst into her past to create wry, observational indie rock songs that feel both banal and brutal. On her early solo albums, 2016’s No Burden and 2018’s Historian, Dacus transforms her past traumas into profound epiphanies: take her breakout single “Night Shift,” a gutting takedown of an ex-lover in which Dacus sings, “You don’t deserve what you don’t respect.” She later expresses hope that, in five years, songs about this person “will feel like covers” — as if airing out her wounds will make them feel less fresh. This memoiristic style — which also appears in her work with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker in the supergroup boygenius — has solidified Dacus’ reputation as a candid chronicler of personal history.
Yet Dacus has kept excavating. Her forthcoming third studio album, Home Video (out June 25 on Matador Records), might be the closest she has come to reaching her core. The project is a retrospective exploration of her upbringing as a young, queer Christian kid in Richmond, Virginia, through which Dacus investigates the roots behind her longheld struggles with internalized homophobia and existential dread. Many of the songs came to her while walking around her hometown, a place that helped her recollect deeply seeded experiences. “I fully accept that currently there are things that I have not processed because my brain has said, ‘No,’” Dacus explains. Later she adds, “A big part of me didn’t want to share some of this, but I think it’s worth it.
Ahead of Home Video’s release this Friday, Dacus sat down with them. to unpack being a "post-Christian kid," looking at the bright side of our imminent doom, and how a vocal injury helped her push her style into a new direction.
Both “Christine” and “Thumbs” deal with this feeling of helplessness while witnessing a friend in a harmful relationship. You talk about the lengths you would be willing to go to protect your friends from harm. Did writing about those dynamics give you a sense of control over them?
It's funny. I wish I could say yes, but actually no. I feel like writing those songs was almost like admitting, "I have no control over this." That's why I just need to express it. I would do anything [to protect my friends]. I mean, I wouldn't murder, maybe. I think that's a disappointment to some people, but I wouldn't actually follow through with a murder. But yeah, pretty close.
On “Cartwheel,” you talk about how this betrayal of a friend shattered the plans of a future that you had envisioned with them, and you call the future “a benevolent black hole.” Now that you're living in this future, what does that lyric mean to you?
Maybe I do think that we're all headed towards doom, but it's not personal. You can also have fun. The benevolence of the black hole is just like, celebrate when you can and find warmth, comradery, solace, and cope how you must on our journey into the dark. Also, on a personal level, everybody dies.
Whenever I get [in that apocalyptic mindset], I'm like, "Wait, wait, wait, how useful is this?" Some days it feels useful to think about the future of mankind, and then other days I'm like, "Man, I'm just a girl. I don't need to think about this." Am I going to spend three hours spiraling about this or could I go outside and live the life that I would hypothetically like to protect?
I think “Please Stay” is really moving, and its message feels like it could be universal to anyone who’s thinking about taking their own life. Did you intentionally lean into that universality?
Yeah. I think that it's helpful to step back and realize, "Wait, so many people deal with this." It's a really lonely feeling when you think it's a good idea to end your life. So, even just to think, “So many people have experienced this, can that be a connection?” I had a friend who was given a sheet that said, "100 Things to Do Instead of Kill Yourself." It had really mundane stuff on it, like, “watch a movie,” “go for a walk,” “dye your hair,” “talk to a friend,” or “volunteer,” things like that. The list at the end of [“Please Stay”] is kind of in reference to that.
On “VBS,” you talk about this fellow camper at Bible school who, it seems like, is struggling with their faith in the world. How has your relationship with your faith changed since then?
Basically, I'm not a Christian anymore, but I feel culturally Christian. One time, Hayley Williams [of Paramore] said, "us post-Christian kids." I was like, “Post-Christian, like, post-hardcore. That's so funny.” But yeah ... All religions are kind of barking up the same tree. And I'm interested in the tree.
Was there a specific time that you realized you wanted to officially separate from identifying as Christian?
Yeah, it was in junior year of high school. I started going to some friends' churches where all the sermons were just trash. They made me so mad because I really did believe in Christianity as a good force and a unifying beautiful method of life. They were just about not having sex and kids were just super repressed… Really cruel things that obviously I don't believe in, yet the shadow of it all still affects me. Even though I have to live in reaction to that against it, it's still somehow guiding my life. Even if I want to do the opposite, it's still the reference point. And that sucks.
Your boygenius bandmates sing harmonies on the album. What made you decide to have them accompany you on those tracks?
Well, they were coming to [Nashville] anyway, because Phoebe wanted us to sing on “Graceland Too,” and it felt like a no brainer. We don't know if or when we'll ever do boygenius again, so providing space for it when we can feels really precious.
Why did you use auto-tune on “Partner in Crime?”
It was a mistake. I had a vocal injury before recording, and I had to be silent for all of July. Then we recorded in August and I would warm up at 3:00 PM, sing, and then warm down at 5:00 and be silent for the rest of the day. That's when we got all of the vocals that you hear on the record. I mean, even today I'm drinking Throat Coat and trying to pitch my voice up because that's healthier for you.
[On the day we recorded that song] I was just sucking. So, we auto-tuned it and it was meant to be temporary. But then by the end of the day I was like, "I love this, and it's influencing the vibe." It led us into a song that I think is really different from any songs I've made so far. It feels like it stretched me and that is what I'm looking for when I'm recording a record.
“Triple Dog Dare” ends with this young queer couple, whose love is forbidden by their community, running away together. What made you want to end the album on that note?
“Hot and Heavy,” the first song, is this entry back into a space that almost makes you revert to an old version of yourself. When you're remembering things, you're maybe at risk of slipping into the past or something. But what the characters do in [“Triple Dog Dare”] is they say, "I am opting out of everything that I've been taught and I'm following my instincts and I'm changing my life." It felt like a good note to end on, to close all this remembering I had just done.
I wish that my story was just lovely and my journey with queerness was just really easy. But it hasn't been. I feel like I haven't even made a clean cut from my internalized homophobia, probably, from growing up in church. I feel like it was an optimistic ending, even though it's kind of up to the listener's interpretation about whether they succeed at their quest or if they die at sea, or something. I basically wanted the message to be that every child is a person and is going to go about their life however they will.
I think this album kind of feels like a time capsule in a way. How does it feel to be on the other side of that?
I mean, I feel like an adult. I feel like that is not something that everyone says to themselves. There's the stupid thing that's like “adulting,” that's not what I mean. [It] means to me that you're the authority [figure] fully on your own life.
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