Lucy Dacus - Thumbs

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. 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. https://songexploder.net/lucy-dacus

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

• 0:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm going to be on tour, playing some shows this fall. I'm going to be in London on Wednesday, November 18th. I'm going to be performing solo at Rough Trade Records on Denmark Street, and I'm going to be in conversation about my music moderated by one of my favorite actors and writers, Matthew Bainton. And a ticket to the show also gets you a copy of my album on vinyl or CD. And in December, I'm going to be on tour supporting S. Carry. We're going to be playing a bunch of shows in the Northeast US. So I hope to see you in one of those places. You can find all the details and get links to tickets at songexploder.net/live. That's songexploder.net/live.

• 0:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode is sponsored by the podcast, What It's Like to Be. Do you ever think about what other people's workdays look like? Satisfying some of that curiosity is the idea at the heart of bestselling author Dan Heath's podcast, which is called What It's Like to Be. In each episode, Dan interviews someone from a different profession to find out what it's like to be a professional Santa Claus, or a Secret Service agent, or a long haul truck driver, or an aerospace engineer at NASA, just to name a few examples. The show gives you an insider view into all kinds of jobs from a wide range of industries, answering questions like, what do mail carriers learn about us from our mail? There are so many jobs out there that exist only as titles in our imagination,

• 1:41Hrishikesh Hirway?

  if they even register that much. This show is a chance to reach beyond what you know or think you know. If you're curious to learn more about the work lives of other people, check out What It's Like to Be, wherever you get podcasts. There's a new podcast called Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers. In every legendary music career, there's a moment right before it all changes. And in every episode of this podcast, Nile Rodgers talks to a legendary musician about the choices, the events, and the relationships that shaped their career before the moment that everything changed for them. Every story is unique and opens a window into the lives of some of the biggest names in music, and Nile is the perfect person to lead these conversations.

• 2:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Because for over 50 years, he's played guitar with artists like Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Daft Punk, and Beyoncé. In the first season of the podcast, some of Nile's guests include John Legend, Miguel, and more. New episodes are coming out every other Tuesday. Listen to Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers wherever you get your podcasts. Lucy Dacus has a new album coming out on March 28th called Forever is a Feeling. So before it comes out, I thought it could be nice to revisit her Song Exploder episode from 2021. It's about the beautiful and brutally heartbreaking song Thumbs, which I love. Since recording that episode, Lucy's won three Grammy Awards as part of her band

• 3:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Boy Genius, including Album of the Year. But back in 2021, I had a really nice afternoon talking to Lucy. She was the first guest to come over and record with me in person after COVID hit. So I have a lot of fond memories about this one, and I hope you'll enjoy listening or re-listening to it with me.

• 3:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  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 before going ahead.

• 3:49Hrishikesh Hirway?

  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 Boyd Genius with Julian 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.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Your nails are digging into my knee. I don't know how you keep smiling.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  I'm Lucy Dacus. 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 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." We met him at a diner-ish place, and I just immediately hated him. And I was raised to just not hate, you know, like, love everyone.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  And I still try to access that love, especially when I feel hate coming on. But this was the first time that it just really won out. 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, "It has nothing to do with you." Like, how could he be proud if he wasn't there? Everything that she is is 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.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, fuck that guy.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  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. They'd be 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. It's hard to say if I was actively ignoring the story, but I wasn't thinking about it.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Over time, I have recognized how powerful my dissociative powers are. My brain will simply not show me what I'm not ready to see. And I think this was one of those things where just suddenly, for some reason, the timer went off like, "Dang, it took five years, but now the thought is fully baked and here it is out of the oven."

• 7:21Speaker 02

  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 Lizard, who is my guitarist, and Colin Pastor, 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. I always write melody and words at the same time.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  I feel like melody is sort of like a highlighter, where like pitch accentuates meaning. Like the words are the words, but they're balanced by the emotion that you put into the performance. So we meet him at a bar. You were holding my hand hard.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  He ordered rum and coke. I can't drink either anymore. He hadn't seen you since the fifth grade. Now you're nineteen and you're five eight. He said, "Honey, you sure look great. Do you get the checks I send on your birthday?"

• 8:51Speaker 02

  I wrote the whole song on the fifteen-minute car ride. And after I was done, I felt like literally ill. We like got to the restaurant and I was like, "You go ahead." And they got a table and I just like opened the car door and like kind of leaned on my legs and like felt like I was gonna throw up and just cried a little bit.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I haven't had a feeling like that before or since.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  I was so nervous the first time I played "Thumbs." I was on tour with Boy Genius. That's my band with Phoebe Bridgers and Julian Baker. And we love to show each other our 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.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  You hung up the phone and I asked you what was wrong.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  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. It actually created a bond, the fact that people respected that. But 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 at shows before. But it felt so awesome.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  So I'd 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. 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 this snotty-nosed, 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.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I clear my throat and say we ought to get home. He offers us a ride. I reply, "No, that's all right." And when we leave, you feel him watching. So we walk a mile in the wrong direction.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  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."

• 12:34Speaker 02

  And I actually just like hated it, even though it's not that bad.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  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 recording, is saying, "This ain't it." And so this demo that you hear was never supposed to be heard by anybody, but such is the nature of this podcast.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  So then when we went into the studio to record it, I was like, "This is the one that's gonna be the easiest, because I'm just gonna play guitar and sing it, and it'll be like the shows." And the first night that we tried that, we thought we got it, like Take Two.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  And Colin came into the tracking room and just like hugged me and cried like a 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 Scotty Prado. They run it, and they were my high school band. So everyone there is like people I've known since we were all teenagers. And we were saying like, "We've known each other for so long, and who would've 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 listened back to it, and it just wasn't good.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Like, the emotion was there, but the recording was bad. And we were like, 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, like, we finished the whole record, but Thumbs wasn't done.

• 15:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  More with Lucy Dacus after this.

• 15:08Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode is sponsored by LinkedIn. Anyone who's ever had to spend money on marketing knows how tricky it can be to feel like you've spent that money wisely. Well, with LinkedIn Ads, you can be sure that you'll get a great return on your investment. You can target your campaigns by company, industry, job title, and more. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/songexploder. That's LinkedIn.com/songexploder. Terms and conditions apply. Thanks to Stio for sponsoring Song Exploder. I took a trip to Iceland this summer, and because it was the summer, I didn't really think about dressing for

• 15:52Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 16:33Hrishikesh Hirway?

  order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash songexploder. Stio dot com slash songexploder. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole.

• 16:45Speaker 03

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• 17:18Speaker 02

  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. 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 all right.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  And a pad that is like the most boring pad. I 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 bass needs to be in because it's like, I feel bassy in my body. So we walk a mile in the wrong direction.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  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.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  It's a little brutal because you just have to interact with the story and you don't really get an 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. I love your eyes. And he has them. Or you have his. Because he was first.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  I imagine my thumbs on the irises pressing in until they burst.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  I remember showing it to my drummer Ricardo. And I remember saying to Ricardo for the first time, like, I think I'm gonna call it "Thumbs." And he like 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, like, as was I. Because it's really violent. It's unlike me. 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. You two are connected by a pure coincidence.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  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 like sums up what I wish for my friend. I like wrote it down. The like, "You don't owe 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 then the second time felt like it was for me.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  I am adopted and my birth father is a little obsessive. Basically, I also needed to hear that I don't owe him shit, which I didn't know I believed until I said it out loud.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  My mom is actually adopted as well. And so, the idea of 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."

• 22:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  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 write 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. 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.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  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.

• 23:53Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And now, here's "Thumbs" by Lucy Dacus in its entirety.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  You hung up the phone and I asked you what was wrong. Your dad has come to town, he'd like to meet.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  I said you don't have to see him, but for whatever reason, you can tell him no.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  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 nineteen and you're five eight. He said, "Honey, you sure look great. Do you get the checks I send on your birthday?"

• 25:03Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I love your eyes, and he has them. Or you have his, 'cause he was first. I imagine my thumbs on the irises pressing in until they burst.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  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.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  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. I don't know how you keep smiling. I don't know how you keep smiling.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  I wanna take your face between my hands and say 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.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  You don't owe him shit, even if he said you did.

• 28:21Hrishikesh Hirway?

  To learn more, visit songexploder.net, where you'll find links to buy or stream Thumbs.

• 28:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  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 at @RishiHirway, and you can follow the show at @SongExploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Thanks for listening.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Radiotopia. From PRX.