Wednesday, Sep 22, 2021 • 23min
Lucy Dacus - Thumbs
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Lucy Dacus is a singer and songwriter from Richmond, Virginia. She put out her first album in 2016, and in 2018 she formed the band boygenius with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers. In June 2021, she released her third album, Home Video, which includes the song "Thumbs." The first time I heard it, I knew I wanted to ask Lucy about how and why she made it. After some COVID testing, we spoke in person here in Los Angeles. And she told me the story of how "Thumbs" took months and months to get right.
For more, visit songexploder.net/lucy-dacus http://songexploder.net/lucy-dacus
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Lucy Dacus
Hrishikesh Hirway
Transcript
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Hrishikesh Hirway
00:00
You're listening to
Song Exploder
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. My name is Hrishikesh Hirway
.Share
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Hrishikesh Hirway
02:03
Before this episode starts, I want to give a content warning, there's some explicit language but more crucially, the subject matter could be upsetting to some listeners. There's an explicit description of a pretty violent act in the song, and there's some not explicit but implied behavior of a parent mistreating their child, so please be mindful of that and take care of before going ahead.
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02:25
Lucy Dacus
is a singer and songwriter from Richmond,
Virginia
. She put out her first album in 2016 and in 2018 she formed the band Boygenius
with Julien Baker
and Phoebe Bridgers
. In June 2021, she released her third album Home Video which includes this song Thumbs. The first time I heard it, I knew I wanted to ask Lucy
about how and why she made it. So after some covid
testing, we spoke in person here in Los Angeles,
and she told me the story of how Thumbs took months and months to get right.Share
Lucy Dacus
03:07
I don't know how you keep smiling. I'm
Lucy Dacus.
Share
03:19
The day that I wrote Thumbs was in 2018, but the event that the song is about happened like five years before. I was 19, and I had a friend who was crying because she had just been on the phone, and she told me that her dad was in town, and she hadn't seen him for a really long time and I knew that he was a bad dude and I just told her like I'm coming with you, you absolutely don't have to do this alone.
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03:50
We met him at a diner-ish place. I wanted to say to him the things that I wish she would, and I didn't, but all the silences I tried to fill with like "yeah, you know she's doing amazing", and he kept trying to take credit and be like "I'm proud of you". Like I tried to imply, like has nothing to do with you. Like, how could he be proud if he wasn't there?
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04:20
Everything that she is like from herself, I am proud of her and I respect her so much for those things because I've had the privilege of watching her and I just immediately hated him, and I was raised to just not hate, you know like love everyone and I still try to access that love especially when I feel hate coming on, but this is the first time that it just really one out. Fuck that guy.
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04:49
I started writing my own songs probably when I was like 15 and just kept them to myself or showed them to like a couple of friends, but I had a lot of friends in
Richmond
just peer pressure me into doing shows, like "we need an opener, we know you write songs just show up" and so when this happened I was already playing shows, but I never thought about writing, about this, I didn't even journal about it which is odd for me.Share
05:25
It's hard to say if I was actively ignoring the story, but I wasn't thinking about it, over time I have recognized how powerful my disassociative powers are. My brain will simply not show me what I'm not ready to see, and I think this is one of those things were just suddenly for some reason the timer went off like saying it took five years, but now the thought is fully baked, inherit is out of the oven.
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05:59
The day that I wrote Thumbs was in
Nashville
when I was like out there recording some random stuff and everyone that I work with wanted to go get Thai food Jacob Blizard who is my guitarist and Collin Pastore who is our co-producer. The three of us have made everything that I've ever made and in the car I had this little notebook that I carry around, and I just started writing from the top. You hung up the phone and I asked you what was wrong? Your dad has come to town, he'd like to meet.Share
06:41
I always write melody and words at the same time. I feel like melody is sort of like a highlighter or like pitch accentuates meaning like the words are the words, but they are balanced by the emotion that you put into the performance. So we meet him at a bar, you were holding my hand hard. He ordered rum and coke. I can't drink either anymore. He hadn't seen you since the fifth grade, now you're 19, and you're five-eight. He said, "honey, you should look great, do you get the checks I send on your birthday? "
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07:29
I wrote the whole song on the 15-minute car ride, and after I was done, I felt like literally ill. We got to the restaurant, and I was like, you go ahead, and I got a table and I just like opened the car door and like kind of leaned on my legs and felt like I was going to throw up and just cried a little bit. I would kill him if you let me, I would kill him, quick and easy, your nails are digging into my knee, I don't know how you keep smiling. Yeah, I haven't had a feeling like that before or since.
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08:24
I was so nervous the first time I played Thumbs. I was on tour with
Boygenius
. That's my band with Phoebe Bridgers
and Julien Baker,
and we love to show each other songs in progress. So we were doing like a song share backstage and I started playing it, Phoebe
actually was like "you have to play this tonight". So I played it at the show. You hung up the phone and I asked you what was wrong.Share
08:56
I knew that I needed like practice playing it since writing it made me feel sick, and I knew I needed to play it before I recorded it. I was really grateful for all the shows that I played this at because I would ask people not to record it.
Share
09:12
It actually created a bond, the fact that people respected that. Yeah, there were some nights that I cried or some nights that my throat closed up, and I just had to like gulp and start again. But it's like yeah just mutual trust that I actually hadn't felt that in shows before, but it felt so awesome.
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09:38
So I've been playing the song for a while, and then asked my friend to my house, so I could show it to her because I wanted to ask permission to put it on the album. If she had told me "you can't record this", I wouldn't have.
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09:54
I broke down playing it for her, I like kind of forgot to play the right chords and by the end of it I was just like the snotty nose, ugly crying, little sap and I mean she said the thing that has made it possible to put it out where she was like, "this is not a sad song, this is about our friendship, and it just makes me realize that I'm so glad you were the one there".
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10:23
I clear my throat and say we ought to get home, he offers us a ride, I reply "No, that's alright", and when we leave, you feel him watching, so we walk a mile in the wrong direction. When I first showed Jacob Thumbs, he just said sing it and play guitar, and I'll do electronic drums and kind of like work out an arrangement. So we meet him at a bar, you were holding my hand hard. And I actually just like hated it, even though it's not that bad. I would kill him if you let me.
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11:23
I just knew it couldn't be that big. I was listening to it and drafting my email as I was listening to it like this, ain't it. But that's okay. That's most of the recording saying this, ain't it? And so this demo that you hear was never supposed to be heard by anybody, but such as the nature of this podcast. Your nails are digging into my knee, I don't know how you keep smiling.
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12:00
So then when we went into the studio to record it, I was like, this is the one that's going to be the easiest because I'm just going to play guitar and sing it, and it will be like the shows. And the first night that we tried that, we thought we got it like take two.
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12:21
I lovе your eyes and he has thеm, but you have his, 'cause he was first. And Colin came into the tracking room and just hugged me and cried like snotty cry, which is not something that he and I have done much. I record at Trace Horse Studio in
Nashville
, which is owned by Preston Cochran and Scottie Prudhoe, or they run it, and they were my high school band.Share
12:53
So everyone, there is like people I have known since we were all teenagers, and we were saying like we've known each other for so long, and who would have thought we'd be tracking like this? Everyone was just saying like more emotional stuff than we usually say. And then the next day we listen back to it, and it just wasn't good.
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13:17
Like the emotion was there, but the recording was bad and really, "oh, I guess we should just try again". So we tried with an acoustic, we tried with me not playing guitar, we tried a full band version for a second and nothing felt right. And so we finished the whole record, but Thumbs wasn't done. And then I went back January of 2020, and I said like I wish I could just sing this a cappella and not have it be weird.
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13:51
And so I just sang it and then added things underneath that. I wanted it to be as close to not existing as possible. Like, I wanted it to feel like a cappella plus, essentially. And so the version that's on the record is only the vocal. I clear my throat and say we ought to get home, he offers us a ride, I reply "No, that's alright".
Share
14:24
And a pad that is like the most boring pad was like, I want this pad to have zero personality and then a bass synth. The bass synth moments are just when I feel it in my gut, that is when the base needs to be in because it's like, I feel bassie in my body.
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14:48
So we walk a mile in the wrong direction. And then the wind sound is like when I feel like kind of crazed or erratic. I don't know how you keep smiling, I don't know how you keep smiling, I don't know how you keep smiling.
Share
15:31
It's a little brutal because you just have to interact with the story, and you don't really get it out. There isn't some opening up of the arrangement. It's kind of like front to back a story and I kind of hear it more as a story than as a song, but also I lived it, so maybe I'm biased.
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15:53
I lovе your eyes and he has thеm, but you have his, 'cause he was first, I imagine my thumbs on the irises, pressing in until they burst. I remember showing it to my drummer Ricardo and I remember saying to Ricardo for the first time. "I think I'm going to call it Thumbs", and he jumped out of his chair and he was like that is brutal, that is so much, and I think everyone in my life was really surprised as was I because it's really violent. It's unlike me.
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16:43
What does it say about me that I came up with this image? I don't know, I think I'd like to believe that what you make comes from you but isn't solely defining you all the time.
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16:59
You two are connected by a pure coincidence, bound to him by blood, but, baby, it's all relative. You've been in his fist ever since you were a kid, but you don't owe him shit even if he said you did. The last bit of the song that kind of sums up what I wish for my friend, I wrote it down like you don't know him shit line, and you know I say it twice in the song, I wrote it down twice, and the first time felt like it was for her and the second time felt like it was for me.
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17:49
I am adopted, and my birth father is a little obsessive, basically I also needed to hear that I don't know him shit, which I didn't know I believed until I said it out loud. My mom was actually adopted as well. And so the idea of like chosen family has been a part of my life my whole life. So blood ties have never really made sense to me and I think that they are used as a tool for manipulation like "you owe me this because I gave birth to you".
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18:31
So yeah, I think that you don't owe your family. I think that it can be beautiful to feel like you want to enrich the people who have loved you with your own love, like that is at the core like a very human, wonderful exchange, but yeah, family blood, it's not as important as I think people make it out to be. You don't owe him shit, even if he said you did.
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19:13
I think up until this point I've been protecting myself from the task of having to play things that feel bad, and I've watched friends right, super vulnerable and painful music, and then they have to play it every night like I've been afraid to do that, and I think I have resisted going into certain depths but this record, I just did it anyways, and I'm already starting to see like, oh yeah, that fear was legitimate.
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19:44
And I have to remind myself that like if it's a night where I can't handle it, I don't have to play it and I want to believe that anybody that really cares about me would understand that. And I hope that it is therapeutic, and I hope that it can provide a sense of solace, and I'm sorry that it does, I wish less people could relate to this song, honestly.
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Hrishikesh Hirway
20:16
And now here's Thumbs by
Lucy Dacus
in its entirety.Share
20:30
To learn more visit songexploder. net where you'll find links to buy or stream Thumbs.
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Hrishikesh Hirway
25:48
Today this episode was made by me with editing help from Craig, Ely and Casey Deal artwork by Carlos Lerma, Music clearance by Kathleen Smith and production assistance from Chloe Parker.
Song Exploder
is a proud member of Radiotopia
from PRX. A network of independent listener supported artist owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia. fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @hrishikeshhirway and you can follow the show at Song Exploder
. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder. net/shirt. I'm Hrishikesh Hirway
, thanks for listening. Radiotopia from PRX.Share
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