Interview: Lucy Dacus on new album 'Forever Is A Feeling'.
"It feels unpoetic to say just, 'I love you,' and yet I love so many people, and I want to tell them, and whenever people tell me that they love me, I'm happy - I feel close to them, and it's a good reminder," muses Lucy Dacus on the difficulty of verbalising those three words. "It's not something you can say one time and it counts forever. It is something you need to reiterate and show and live into. I would say that if it feels hard, exercise it like a muscle, just do it more, and then it'll maybe stop feeling hard."
To celebrate the release of her new album, 'Forever Is A Feeling', Coup De Main spent a sunny Los Angeles day with Dacus in a Rococo-style hideaway to discuss love languages, limerence, and "looking for meaning all the time"...
Click here to order our limited-edition CDM x Lucy Dacus zine (i.e. mini-magazine featuring photos / Q&A from this interview).
COUP DE MAIN: My favourite part of your show last night at The Huntington was when you said that you are an idiot and a fan yelled out "no, you’re smart," and then you said, "I read a lot of books." This is exactly the kind of comedy routine I want when I go to a show.
LUCY DACUS: <laughs> They were a very polite crowd - a bunch of sweethearts.
CDM: Last night you referred to Annie Dillard’s wise words: "How you spend your time is how you spend your life." So, how do you spend your time, Lucy Dacus?
LUCY: Ah! It's Annie Dillard! I'm glad you looked it up. Even if it's not a cliché, I guess I just remembered that because I read her book 'Pilgrim At Tinker Creek' a long time ago and she's awesome. How do I spend my time? I love walking my dog. Recently I've been trying to do more visual art, not like that [self-portrait] drawing of me, but I've recently been doing not anything representational, and I see friends a lot. I love good food. I like to be outside. I read and write. I'm also an aspiring gardener, meaning I think about it and I'm doing research, but I don't. I'm not bold enough to just start. <laughs> What's hard about gardening when you're a touring musician is that you leave so often, and I already need to get people to watch the dog. It doesn't feel like I'm in a part of life where I can be a green thumb.
CDM: That's okay, you have the rest of your life.
LUCY: Yeah, that's true.
CDM: You played some unreleased tracks live during the 'Home Video' tour and requested the audience to not film these songs in particular - do you have a place in mind for some of those songs? Did any of them make this album?
LUCY: Some of them did, and some of them didn't. Not because I don't like them, but because I feel like the arc of the record as it stands feels kind of seamless. I tried to fit in two other ones, but I was like, 'This just feels like extra,' and I hope they'll come out one day, but not for now. But 'Come Out' is one that I would play live. That's the one that I played the most during 'Home Video'.
CDM: If forever is a feeling, what does forever feel like?
LUCY: To me, forever feels like no matter what happens, this affects everything. Not just in dramatic ways, but in peaceful ways too. When I'm really in love, I feel like that stillness is gonna last forever. It's become such a core memory that on a deep level, I'll always know that I can get to that place. Or when you feel like your love for someone is so strong that after you both die, the love will somehow keep tumbling through the world and affect other people.
CDM: Kind of like invisible string.
LUCY: The Taylor Swift song?
CDM: Yes, but I think also just in general.
LUCY: Okay, cool. I didn't know if you referencing. <laughs>
CDM: Just the loose threads of your lives and everyone else's.
LUCY: Everything is connected.
CDM: Obviously, you have a soft spot for Calliope. Are there any other Greek goddesses or gods that you are also fond of?
LUCY: Oh my gosh, I want to be learning more! That's partially why I have chosen all these aesthetics and references - it's an occasion for me to be learning more. But 'Calliope Prelude', originally I was just going to name it 'Phoenix' because that's the woman that played violin on the record - Phoenix Rousiamanis - and she's Greek. But I thought people would just think I'm referencing the bird born from the ashes and that was maybe a little corny to me. So then I was going to call it 'Greek Goddess' to reference Phoenix, but then I was like, 'Wait, what's the Greek goddess of music and writing?' And so I chose that name.
CDM: What is your favourite thing about art?
LUCY: That feels like a crazy question. I like seeing a piece of art that just befuddles me, like I can't understand how it was made, and that can happen in any medium and from any time period. I'll look at something and feel like they captured something ineffable - and all my favourite works of art I could look at for the length of a movie. That's a wild question. I don't really even know how to answer that.
Lucy wears: OGURA white dress, Vintage Dior from Paumé Los Angeles slip dress, Stylist's own shoes, Mae Jean Vintage rings.
CDM: When you immortalise people in your songs, remembering the way that they have affected you and not the actual people themselves, do you consider these interpretations to exist like characters in little alternate universes? Or more like multiple threads tied up together in the tapestry of your life?
LUCY: I feel like it's impossible to actually immortalise anybody, so it's more like an ode, or just to acknowledge that you were important for better or worse. But I think definitely more the second framework that you said, more like threads. Yes, they're characters, and other people can't know who they really are to me, and they can't know the past or the future of that relationship. They only know in the three minutes of the song what I'm able to put before them. I think to most people, I would say that they're characters, but to me, it's just like aspects and threads in the tapestry.
CDM: In 'Big Deal' you say, "You’ve got your girl, you’re gonna marry her / And I’ll be watching in a pinstripe suit, sincerely happy for the both of you." And in 'Christine' from your last album, you said: "But if you get married, I'd object / Throw my shoe at the altar and lose your respect / I'd rather lose my dignity / Than lose you to somebody who won't make you happy." What is it about the concept of marriage that really inspires you to put pen to paper?
LUCY: I'm a historically anti-marriage person - a child of divorce. I've always thought, 'Isn't this enough to just say that we care about each other? Why do we need the government to be affirming this?' And the history of marriage is so rooted in colonialism and disenfranchisement, especially of native people, so marriage has a bunch of marks against it. But also, as I get older, I do want my full rights. <laughs> Anyways, it's a dramatic moment in life - one that I don't really understand. I think I often write about things that I don't understand. I also think of marriage as this thing that kind of takes people out of the variety and flexibility of life into a more rigid, isolated existence, which I don't believe as much anymore, but it really made me feel nervous and scared whenever I thought about the idea of my best friends married because I'm like, 'You're just gonna disappear.' Specifically that song 'Christine', I was in love with her, and I didn't even know that when I wrote that - we actually did at a point get to talk about that, and we were actually together for some time after I wrote that song.
CDM: You just mentioned that you write about things that you don't understand. Is that your way of processing them and helping yourself to understand?
LUCY: For sure! Myself, and then when I get to share it with other people, it's just like a part of our ongoing conversations.
Lucy wears: Vintage Dolce & Gabbana bra from Paumé Los Angeles, Stylist's own vintage robe and shoes.
CDM: I love the sentiment of the lyric "you're a big deal". What's the most memorable compliment anyone has ever given you?
LUCY: One of my best friends from high school and I were recently talking about being able to sense people's true motivations, and that people being honest about their motivations is very important. They were saying that they can always trust that my motivations are not concealed, and that they're coming from a good place. Especially now when you have millions of people knowing who you are, and being like, 'I believe this,' or 'I don't believe it'... Especially as a performer, I think people equate performance with falseness, and I appreciate that the people that know me best, know that I'm not being false or doing things from a sinister self-serving place.
CDM: Likewise, the mentions of helping with a crossword and making tea in 'Ankles' are really romantic. Do you enjoy grand displays of affection more? Or little acts of service and words of affirmation?
LUCY: That's so interesting because again, both are great if they're coming from a genuine place. It's not either/or. I had a relationship once where the person would be awful to me for months at a time and then do a grand gesture to win me back, and I was very susceptible to that. And that was actually bad, because that was just to keep me, it was a manipulation. But then I've also had a relationship where the person never did anything romantic, and then they would be like, "But I do all these things day to day that should be enough," and just the heart wasn't there. Luckily, in recent times, I've had relationships that have both, and I believe both. People talk about love languages. Do you know about that?
CDM: Yes!
LUCY: I need all of them. For real, I'm not choosing one. I want all of them.
CDM: 'Most Wanted Man' feels like a grand display of affection. What does love feel like to you?
LUCY: These questions you're asking are so wide. I need to think because I could say so many things. What does love feel like to me? Trust? Why don't I just stop there? Trust. I've been asking people to define love to me, and one of my favourite definitions - maybe I've already said this in another interview, but it's not like everyone's reading all of them - is that love is the ever-present foundation that connects everyone that is easily forgotten. It's always there. It's not something you have to go find. It's something that you have but just life distracts you from it, and all these other things keep your mind off of it.
Lucy wears: Vintage Calvin Klein from Arbitrage top, Stylist's own vintage skirt and shoes, Paumé Los Angeles vintage necklace and earrings.
CDM: I almost cried when in 'Lost Time' you say: "I love you and everyday that I knew and didn’t say is lost time." It can be really scary to be vulnerable and honest. Why is verbalising the words "I love you" so hard to do?
LUCY: I don't know because even when I wrote that, it felt like stuttering. I was alone, and it felt like I couldn't just say like, "I love you." It feels too plain. It's almost vulgar to say it. It feels unpoetic to say just, "I love you," and yet I love so many people, and I want to tell them, and whenever people tell me that they love me, I'm happy - I feel close to them, and it's a good reminder. It's not something you can say one time and it counts forever. It is something you need to reiterate and show and live into. I would say that if it feels hard, exercise it like a muscle, just do it more, and then it'll maybe stop feeling hard.
CDM: Is it harder to feel love? Or to say you're in love?
LUCY: My tendency is that I don't usually instigate. Usually, other people tell me they have feelings, and then a door opens and I realise if I do or don't. It's rare for me, and especially in the past... I mean, part of 'Lost Time' is that I have lost a lot of time to being afraid of saying that I have feelings for people because I haven't wanted relationships to change. So I think feeling love and showing love is easier than acknowledging it head on.
CDM: I'm obsessed with the fact you've written a song called 'Limerence'. I read about Dorothy Tennov's theories on 'Love and Limerence' last year and found them really fascinating. She believed that there are four stages of limerence: attraction, obsession, elation/frustration, resolution. Which stage of limerence do you think is the hardest?
LUCY: I don't think I really feel limerence that much, but definitely the third phase because limerence is something that is an unideal state of being. It's like love in a trick mirror - it's not really love, even though you have these grand feelings. I think the worst part is being on the rollercoaster ride of becoming super critical about what you're saying, what the other person's saying, searching for signs and hidden meanings. You're not taking the person at face value.
CDM: You're gaslighting yourself.
LUCY: Yes, and that's bad. <laughs>
CDM: "Why do I feel alive when I’m behaving my worst?" in 'Limerence' is a really interesting lyric. Have you figured out an answer to that question yet?
LUCY: Exercising freedom and realising you can do anything at any time. I think about this all the time, like I could just throw this <throws a cushion> - there's no reason. A pillow doesn't hurt anything, but I could throw this candelabra through the glass door too, for no reason. We can just do anything and it does make me feel kind of alive because I can just exercise my free will at any time. I feel like I'm looking for meaning all the time, or I'm making meaning all the time, and to do things that are meaningless or instinctual feels more like animal. So, I don't know... I'm still like that.
CDM: I look forward to watching the VH1 'Lucy Dacus Gone Wild' TV special.
LUCY: As I go and pick up the pillow that I threw.
CDM: She's a demon, for sure.
LUCY: I'm a demon.
CDM: You also say, "The stillness, might eat me alive." Are you a naturally restless person? Or was it just this specific situation?
LUCY: I wouldn't say that I'm restless and that I don't enjoy being still, it's that I crave variety, and also there's just too much to see and people to know. I'm just very interested and intrigued by a lot. I used to just compulsively stay out of my apartment or my house and go to a Museum, make a new friend, go to a movie, like always having stimulus, but the tide is sort of turning on that if I have a free day.
CDM: In 'Modigliani' you say: "I like watching you win over a new crowd / You can make ‘em go wild, you can leave ‘em spellbound / But you will never be famous to me." What was running through your mind while writing those lines?
LUCY: Fame is bad. Let's put it out there. <laughs> I think some people hear that and think, "You'll never be famous to me," is kind of a diss. No! It means that you could be admired, or followed, or known, by any number of people, but that will not affect how I know you and how I care about you. Your fame is not what is important to me - who you are is what matters. Now that I have a few more famous friends, that can be a very beautiful sentiment. I think a lot of people in positions of power, whenever they receive kindness, they kind of discount it by being like, 'Well, this person's only kind because they want something from me.' And it's too often that that's proven correctly. And so I try to be clear with people who are in positions of power in my life that I don't want that aspect of who they are.
CDM: Have you seen the film 'The Worst Person In The World'?
LUCY: Yes! It's so good!
CDM: There's a scene where one of the characters is mourning that he doesn't have anyone in his life that he can talk to, in the way that he used to be able to talk to the film's protagonist. Your song 'Talk' really reminded me of that scene in the movie. Is talking your favourite form of communication?
LUCY: <laughs> I love the implied question of that, which is because I think people would assume that most communication is talking. I do like talking. I would say it's really up there, with a good conversationalist. And in fact, relationships that don't have talk are really hard for me. I like things expressed. I don't want to be guessing. Because also, guessing sort of is judgmental, just filling in the blanks of what you think someone might think. I'd rather people speak for themselves. But presence is also a great form of communication - it's undeniable when you're present with somebody that communicates care and attention.
CDM: I like how the other side of talking is in 'Come Out' when you say: "I used to think that’d be the worst, to grow old and run out of words." What do you think is the hardest thing about communication?
LUCY: I think the hardest thing is that you can't assume that everyone has the same goals because I like to address things head on and in good faith. And some people are trying to get something specific from the conversation, instead of to just understand each other. Or when people think that someone needs to win the conversation, if that's the goal, that's not really about understanding, that's about figuring out who's right and wrong. So that kind of pisses me off.
CDM: In the first verse of 'Come Out', are you describing a real-life situation that happened to you?
LUCY: Yeah, Boygenius talked to a bunch of labels, and I forget which one it was, but we were getting courted over Zoom by some label. And they were definitely trying to-- like they knew that we were going to be hip for the youth, and would say it like that, "hip for the youth" in quotation marks, but they obviously were just old men that were trying to get money and didn't understand what it was.
CDM: I love when label people are like "let's move the needle" and "let's make big noise"... nothing could give me the ick more.
LUCY: I just can't believe we do make them money, because you want to reach the other people.
CDM: Everything Chappell Roan said recently is absolutely correct.
LUCY: So real.
CDM: I'm on Team Chappell.
LUCY: Oh, as am I. Cheerleader for Team Chappell... I was in love with someone, and they were far away, and I was just like, 'Where is she? I'm on this call instead of in your arms? That's so messed up.' And I think that is relatable, like being at work, or if you're in a long-distance relationship: 'That's obviously the most important thing in my life! What's up with all this other stuff that I'm doing?' It starts to not matter.
CDM: What was it like working with Hozier on 'Bullseye'? And how did that collaboration come about?
LUCY: He is so sweet, and I just love his voice. He sang with Boygenius on-stage, and hearing his voice in person, I was just like, 'He's one of the greats.' I thought that song 'Bullseye' would be more impactful if both people in the relationship walked away from it with gratitude, instead of one person doing that. He took the third verse, and he did such a good job. We weren't together, he recorded it while he was in Ireland, but I'm excited to see him. I feel like I owe him, at minimum, a really nice dinner.
CDM: Did he write the lyrics for his verse? Or had you already written them for the song?
LUCY: I had written them and recorded them, and then he sang over. He even matched my phrasing which was so cool. I'm just like, 'You're really a vocalist, like you have so much control.'
CDM: Which songs did you work on with your Boygenius bandmates?
LUCY: Phoebe [Bridgers] sings harmony on 'Modigliani' and Julien [Baker] has a tiny cameo and harmony on 'Most Wanted Man'. And then they are the group vocal at the end of 'Forever Is A Feeling'.
CDM: Are there any plans for a third Boygenius project?
LUCY: There are no plans and I mean it. <laughs>
CDM: Just best friends hanging out.
LUCY: Yeah!
CDM: True or False: You're the Lucy from Taylor Swift's "but you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave" lyric from her 'The Tortured Poets Department' title-track?
LUCY: Can you believe you're the first person to ask in an interview? Yeah, it's true. She texted me to ask if it was all right, and I said, 'For sure.' What an honour. It's definitely interesting to hear this person you've listened to for so long say your name.
CDM: It's funny you said earlier that you can't really immortalise people in song, but I think of you every time I hear that song.
LUCY: Well, I'm not dead, so we'll see if-- I'm already immortalised by being alive.
CDM: Were there any books that inspired you while writing this new album?
LUCY: Yeah! 'Written On The Body' by Jeanette Winterson really inspired me. Let me think through the songs... Garth Greenwell, all of his books, and his writing approach - 'What Belongs To You' and 'Cleanness'. Recently I read, 'Small Rain' which is so wonderful. 'Giovanni's Room' by James Baldwin is always a great touchstone. There was some lyric I read that was like, 'Oh, I must have ripped that off.' There was something that I realised recently that I unintentionally quoted it. Oh! 'Let The Great World Spin' by Colin McCann at the end of 'Bullseye'.
CDM: And lastly, do you intend to return to New Zealand to tour this new album?
LUCY: In my heart: yes. In my calendar: we're working on it. But I'll be so pissed if I don't.
CDM: We're already sad we didn't get a Boygenius tour...
LUCY: I know! Well, the reason is because Boygenius said, "We're giving it one year," so we fit as much as we could in the one year and that left out almost everywhere that wasn't the US.
CDM: I saw you at Re:SET in LA, so I forgive you slightly - only because I got to see Dijon and Clairo live too.
LUCY: Dijon is just one of my like-- such a cool line-up and with Bartees [Strange]. Claire's record ['Charm'] is on repeat for me.
Coup De Main has collaborated with Lucy Dacus on a limited-edition poster zine and sticker sheet - click here to order now!
Photos by: Ragan Henderson | Styling by: Lindsey Hartman
Hair by: Leticia Llesmin | Make-up by: Lochie Stonehouse
Polaroids by: Coup De Main
Shoot assistant: Thomas Stoneman
Lucy Dacus' new album 'Forever Is A Feeling' is out now.
Watch the 'Ankles' video below...
