Lucy Dacus. Photo:
Shervin Lainez
Lucy Dacus has never shied away from feeling things deeply.
In her open-hearted 2016 debut No Burden, she tackled self-consciousness with her contralto. She followed it up two years later with the immersive Historian, which mined heartbreak and the death of a loved one. With her nostalgic 2021 LP Home Video, she paid homage to her coming-of-age years, examining faith and forbidden romance between friends.
On her latest album, Forever Is a Feeling (due March 28), the 29-year-old singer/songwriter is more vulnerable than she’s ever been — about love. “I just couldn’t really fight what I was feeling on a deeper level,” she tells PEOPLE over the phone from New York City. “Even if it didn’t make sense, I had to see about it.”
The record, whose cover is a Renaissance-style painting of the “Please Stay” musician, is Dacus’ most forthright record about desire, sexuality and romance. For the first time, the Virginia-born musician uses female pronouns in her lyrics and writes head-on about falling in love with her Boygenius bandmate Julien Baker.
While it didn’t necessarily feel “comfortable” for her to be so unguarded, it reflected the current chapter in her life.
“I was really moved in an instinctual way instead of a think-y way,” says Dacus of her latest album. “I think a lot of love is, dare I say, cerebral. But I just couldn’t really fight what I was feeling on a deeper level. Even if it didn’t make sense, I had to see about it.”
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Dacus opens up about her relationship, collaborating with Hozier and the future of Boygenius.
Lucy Dacus. Shervin Lainez
Well, it is something that I typed into a note in my phone that I had just kept in mind. I thought I would write a song about it, and I never did, and was like, “Well, I should just name the album….” But then I was like, “I’m being lazy. I should just write the song.” So I looked at all my stray lyrics and patch-worked the title track together. It’s one of my favorite ones now.
I tend to do lead singles from the beginning of records because the sequencing of the tracks really matters to me. I feel like you have to earn whatever happens on side B. You have to set up the question, go on the journey and get to a conclusion. I like when my singles are from the beginning [of the album], because that’s just an introduction to the themes. For instance, “Lost Time” is the last song on the record. That would be so weird if that came out as the single because it’s where I arrive. It’s almost like a spoiler. So, “Ankles” is just a beginning-of-the-thought type idea.
I had a couple of friends that I hit up, and for scheduling reasons they couldn’t make it. I don’t really want to blow up their spots, but people who wanted to come but couldn’t were Arlo Parks, Joy Oladokun and Anjimile, who, all of their music I’m a fan of. And then I have some just friends from home. I have some friends in Chicago. I thought about flying in a bunch of people, but then the fires had just happened, so I didn’t want to ask people to come to Los Angeles who weren’t already there. So there were some limitations. But even with the limitations, the group of people that showed up are super sweet.
Lucy Dacus and co-stars in the “Best Guess” music video.
“’Best Guess’ is the first time I say, “You are my girl,” female pronouns in a song. And so, I was like, “Let’s just make it my bachelor party and I’m in a suit and room, and I have all of my suave men of honor around me.” [It’s] kind of in this nineties Calvin Klein blown-out style evoking a little bit of one of my favorite music videos of all time, Janelle Monáe’s “Q.U.E.E.N.,” which is all black and white, dancing and minimal set design, but just cool movement, basically.
Even if it felt new for me, I feel like people assume that I must have been doing that the whole time. After Boygenius, which was such an obviously and outwardly queer project, I think that some people won’t bat an eye. I still know the trajectory of my life, and how that feels more recent than other people may know. I’ve been dating women for the past good amount of years, but I never talk about it. So, it feels just intimidating to let other people in on that.
Yeah, it’s so much more bare. I can’t look anyone else in the eyes and know that we’re sharing the same experience.
Ankles used to be very salacious to see. So I think that with the strings and the ankles, you think about women and giant crinolines, which is what I wear in the “Ankles” music video. But then the chorus is pretty saucy. So that felt like a fun contrast. That’s kind of what Bridgerton does, too. They’re working within all of the tensions and restraint, and then they also have just fully, fully sexy.
I met him because he sang with Boygenius in Boston, and we just kept in touch over text. I felt really nervous to ask him because I’ve never had a feature. I’ve had friends contribute, but never in the title, “featuring” somebody else, and someone else whose career I admire so much. But from all the few interactions I had with him, I was like, “This guy is a real one. I think he might be into the song. That might be enough.” And it was true. He heard the song, and he was like, “I would absolutely love to do this.”
To me, it reads as the ideal breakup, where you can remember all the reasons that you got together, and it’s not like they don’t apply — you still love the person, you still see why they’re so special — but it’s just not right anymore. [It’s] kind of parallel to a mystery of why we fall in love with who we fall in love with. It’s a mystery why we fall out of love too sometimes. So, with all the goodwill in your heart, sometimes you still have to walk away. And so, it had to be a duet. It’s both people recognizing that and sorrowfully, but contentedly, walking away from each other.
Tracy Chapman. I don’t think I need to collaborate with anyone unless it calls for it. Maybe I don’t even need to collaborate [with her]. I would just maybe pay my respects.
I wanted a children’s choir-esque group vocal at the end. Phoebe [Bridgers] and Julien stepped in and did their best, innocent-sounding, sweet group vocal. And that was more just to use them as instruments. Phoebe sings harmony on “Modigliani,” and that’s a song that is about her. Then Julien sings a tiny feature on “Most Wanted Man,” and that’s a song about her. So that kind of feels personal.
Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers in March 2023. Christopher Polk/Penske Media
“Modigliani,” I wrote in the morning. I went to a museum, the Barnes Foundation in Philly, where there are a bunch of Modiglianis, and I started writing the song there, and then I went home and tested positive for Covid. So then I finished the song in my room, feeling really sorry for myself. Phoebe was on tour in Singapore, and I wanted to talk to her, but it just wasn’t the right time. So, I just wrote her the song because I was missing her. And then “Most Wanted Man,” I mean, “most wanted man in West Tennessee.” Who’s that if not Julien Baker?
Yeah, I have seen them. I mean, I can confirm we are dating. We are together. People are right.
Isn’t that really sweet? I know, it’s funny to just say it so plainly, because I feel like there’s all of this tension of people guessing. I don’t know, we just talked about it kind of recently, and we were like, “What is actually at risk for people knowing this?” We wanted to be protective because it matters so much. I hope to God people knowing won’t make it a less true or pleasant experience. So that’s one of the many precious things I’m giving up with this record. And she’s ready to be telling people, too. So, from us to you, we are in love.
I mean, we’ve been friends for over nine years. Obviously, we haven’t been dating the whole time. But kind of through Boygenius, that was percolating.
I started with my usual cohort of Collin Pastore and Jake Finch, and I wanted to try something different, because we work so well together, we can kind of read each other’s minds. We don’t really surprise each other as much anymore, even though I would continue working with them. They’re secret weapon status and almost like family.
But Blake is such a great musician. I really wanted to hear his approach, and I know that he’s got a way different sensibility than me. We didn’t see eye to eye all the time, but that was part of what was cool about it — his approach is so different than mine, and his focus is so sonic, whereas mine is so lyrical. His contributions are really beautiful, so he ended up committing maybe about a third of the record,
Not even. I feel like we’re all focused on our own lives and work. We do hang out, we do see each other, but we talk about just our lives. If we were always talking about Boygenius, it would crumble. You go back to the well too many times, it dries up. So as of now, nothing to report.
Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, Taylor Swift, and Phoebe Bridgers in February 2024. Francis Specker/CBS
I guess, the challenges are just being subject to more people’s opinions. I do really miss putting out music in a way where music lovers find it, and they either resonate with it and cherish it or it doesn’t hit, and the [songs] bomb. I really don’t want to be somebody that people think they’re supposed to have a take about. That’s so boring — to interact with art that way. To feel like, “Oh, I should have something to say about this.” You really don’t need to say anything. Even if you like it, you don’t need to say anything.
I wish people would listen to it with an open heart and take it in good faith. But people are seeing it as part of the culture, whether they like it or not. It might just mean an influx of people interacting with it that couldn’t care less. I am hoping that the music speaks for itself, and I have the best fans. They’re really good listeners, and there’s mutual respect, so I’m not too worried.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Literally the most revealing [song] is “Most Wanted Man”, because I think it makes it pretty plain as day that it’s for Julien. I mean, she sings on it. But maybe it’s a tie between “Talk” and “Lost Time,” for different reasons. “Talk,” because I think it’s a really dark song. It’s about being with someone for so long that you lose touch with each other, but the other person still expects you to have sex. And having that fear of, “If I don’t do this, the relationship is over, but maybe it’s already over, because we can’t talk anymore.” That, to me, was a really dark, eternal question at a point in my life.
But “Lost Time” is the last song on the record, and basically I just say “I love you,” which feels really embarrassing to say. It’s not poetic just saying the words “I love you” to anyone or into a song, there’s no really getting around it. It’s such a powerful, overweighted statement. And the sentiment of that song is basically, “All of the time that I knew I love you and didn’t say is lost time.” That one feels really close to the heart.
Forever Is a Feeling is out March 28 via Geffen Records.
