Top 70 Lucy Dacus Quotes

I take photos, I used to make films, I journal incessantly, and I really value the documentation of life. Because it’s almost like you are making something special by wanting to make it exist in an object – on paper or even just in the computer – making these recordings, making this music.

I love Led Zeppelin!

What’s cool about Matador is that everyone I’ve met there is just so chill and really into what they’re doing. Everyone that works there, there’s just such a lack of ego, and there’s such a commitment to what they’re doing. They all like each other.

‘No Burden’ is not necessarily ferocious.

I don’t end up writing songs in my journals, but I’m sure that my ability to write songs has been helped by how consistently and impulsively I try to get my life into words through the journals.

Even people that are close to me or people that are acquaintances… The only question I get now is, ‘How is music going?’ It’s an overpowering quality of my life now, the fact that I write songs. It’s weird to navigate what that means socially.

I’m not a big risk-taker – being bad just wasn’t worth my time or the risk of having the consequences for it. So maybe I’m a little bit lame for that.

My dad plays guitar in the church band, so it’s like music as a service. He plays at old-people homes, so that’s like music as a gift.

There have been a couple specific instances where I’ve felt like I couldn’t survive without interacting with a certain person. I’ve been involved with some pretty manipulative people who have told me the same thought: that I can’t live without them.

In middle school, you’re figuring out how you’re affecting people, and sometimes you’re affecting people negatively. And what sucks is that it can affect people for their whole lives. I didn’t realize I was a part of that.

Even if somebody wanted to tell me what one of my songs meant to him or her, I can’t do it – I would be probably put to tears every time.

I was always writing. I’ve always been attracted to words and stories, communication.

In film school, you get skills, but then you get lackey jobs, working on projects that you probably don’t care about. And there’s something in me where I just couldn’t bring myself to edit some misogynistic rom-com or movies that I would have hated to be a part of. So I knew I just wouldn’t get any work because of that.

I heard during our label-searching that some labels hire statisticians instead of A&R people. They’ll reach out to the bands that will statistically perform best monetarily instead of going out to shows and having an opinion on which music is good or bad.

It’s true that no child is born knowing there’s an evil thing. You learn what is ugly.

I don’t retain facts very well when it comes to music history.

Negativity, in general, is one of the things that holds people back, and you have to see what’s holding you back to get away from it.

Humans are fascinated with communication. I was always drawn to words and stories, staying in touch with your feelings and being open to what’s around you.

I feel like the expectations have gone up. It’s not a complaint, but it’s a little intimidating. People are like, ‘Oh, you’re on Matador. It’s kind of a legendary label – you’re going to have to live up to all those other bands.’ I guess it’s not that explicit.

When I finished reading ‘100 Years of Solitude,’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I got really sad. I thought, ‘This will never happen for me, for the first time, ever again.’ Then I opened ‘Beauty Is a Wound.’ It’s a completely different story and writing style, but it has a similar place in my heart now.

There’s a lot of art that’s about loss and sadness, but I would love it if hopefulness were more of a cliche. That’s the work that always sticks with me and emboldens me in life.

It seems like there’s a real world for new ideas in Philly.

Writing has never been an intentional endeavor to me. I know a lot of people have experiences and then sit down and try to sort them out through song, but whenever I sit down to write, it comes out hackneyed or overly saccharine.

It’s important for me to write songs that feel good to sing every night and remind me of my core, truest beliefs.

Film is like sculpture, writing, acting, technical arts, all sorts of arts. And that’s why I wanted to do it for so long, because it would include so many places for attention.

It’s one thing to make something, and then it’s another thing to put it in front of other people.

I’m never writing as a character.

I never considered a career in music because it was too unattainable. I just didn’t believe it was possible.

‘Night Shift‘ is the only breakup song I’ve ever written.

I’ve talked with friends about this: when you write about yourself, that’s what people connect to. When you write a sermon or a lesson, that may not reach people. I’ve learned a lot from people who have been writing about themselves.

I haven‘t studied history – I couldn’t give a discourse in medieval literature – but I am a personal historian, and I do a lot to take in the histories of the people around me.

We were so limited on time for ‘No Burden’ that we didn’t get to overthink anything. There was no going for the perfect take, or even going for three takes. It was kind of nice because what you’re hearing is our first impulse.

I don’t have any weird gimmicks. I do put on lipstick for the show. That’s what separates it. ‘Cause I don’t wear makeup at all… That’s probably the closest thing I have to a routine.

I always wrote songs. Elementary school, middle school. It didn’t feel more creative than speaking. It was just normal to do that.

I have a huge note on my phone where things just start popping up. It doesn’t make that much sense to me at the time, but once a song is finished, I can read into it and figure out who the characters are in my life.

I would not say that my relationships are becoming shallow; if anything, some of them are really being tested in a way that I’m so thankful for my friends that call me and still want to talk.

You don’t have to make something in order to retain your identity as an artist or a writer or a creative person. A lot of people think they have to be producing in order to maintain that identity.

Being on tour, it’s really easy to stop knowing people that you want to know, because you’re not sharing experiences; you’re not existing in the minor moments of somebody’s life.

I think in ‘No Burden’ there was a lot of positivity on the record.

I was adopted, and so was my mom. And so I just was in tune with how life can be intentional. I feel like maybe that helped me to not feel super entitled to a lot of things as a kid.

I will say it is funny that writing a song about not wanting to entertain people is what got me a career in entertainment.

I guess the point of that song ‘Troublemaker, Doppelganger’ is trying to navigate the worth of beauty and if it’s hurtful or helpful to value beauty. If it’s a curse or a blessing. Is that something really negative and morbid, like the hearse, or is it the limousine – a glamorous symbol of enjoying life?

For a while, I called myself an agnostic, which was me wanting to maintain a connection to the culture I was raised in while also undercutting a lot of the beliefs I had.

I hear a lot of artists become kinda self-referential, and a lot of people that tour a lot tend to write about the perils of being on the road later in their careers.

I like to think of hope as a fact and something that wins out always. Whether you’re hopeful or not, actually, you do get through what you’re in the middle of. When you’re in it, you don’t feel like that’s possible. But time and time again, we’re proven wrong.

Usually, I’ll just be walking from my house to somewhere else, and melodies and words will start coming up, and I’ll have to run home to write it all down.

People actually tell me that I’m living my dream. And I’m like, ‘It’s a little more nuanced than that.’

I really believe in hopefulness and respect people that are hopeful. I think I’m at my best when I think hopefully.

The media, and how we’re taught to read it, has a huge impact on who we become as people.

Yo La Tengo were a major inspiration for me because they’re one of the first bands that I got into on my own, separate from my parents, when I was in high school. I have all their albums. That’s the place we’d like be in someday.

I’ve been journaling longer than I’ve been a musician, longer than I’ve been an artist, longer than I’ve been a writer in general.

Music was always encouraged as a passion and a hobby, but I was never told, ‘This should be your job. You write music and record for a living.’ It doesn’t happen for people.

When you’re a kid, you learn whatever your parents think until you start taking in media. Because all your friends are your age as well, media is the third parent that you ever have. So I think about that a lot, what visual imagery is teaching us, and media in general having a huge impact.

I can’t imagine being in a tour bus. It would be nice, but I think it costs $30,000 a week to rent. And I can’t imagine spending what many people make in a year on a vehicle for one week.

From the very beginning, I had a lot of female role models in music. I would go to shows, and there were always women fronting bands and playing guitar or backing up and playing drums or bass in a band. That probably contributed to my belief in myself to go out and perform for people.

I just feel like you’re being realistic if you can laugh at yourself.

The phrase ‘no burden‘ largely captured what I wish people believed about themselves.

I’ve been adjusting to what it means to be a songwriter, figuring out what I like about it and what I don’t like about it and what it means to me as opposed to other people.

I’ve written in the middle of a conversation or the grocery store or at another band’s concert or in the last moments before falling asleep. It’s pretty unpredictable. I think it’s always flowing, and sometimes I’m not listening. There’s no formula for when I’m going to be able to be a good listener to myself.

I don’t even drink coffee. I try to avoid becoming reliant on any substance.

If there are people who treat me wrong, I either talk to them about it, or I don’t talk to them anymore. It’s been the most thoughtful and considerate thing I could do for myself and other people. I am going to try to do that forever.

Questions don’t easily die within me until they’re answered, and so being able to write a song and put words to complex feelings is part of my process of understanding and letting go of things.

I was the funny one in my group; there was a lot pressure to be responsible for everyone’s happiness. I didn’t like watching other friends of mine be called the ‘pretty one’ or the ‘smart one.’ That had no depth, and it didn’t match how I knew them.

I value the people who are willing to make themselves vulnerable and share work that is sensitive and maybe even hard to sing sometimes. Because that’s the music that provides the most solace and solidarity to the world.

A journal is your completely unaltered voice – it’s just for you. And if you know that voice, and you like it, you can bring it out to everyone else, and that’s the most honest and vulnerable thing you can do.

My mom is an elementary school music teacher, a pianist, and a singer, and my dad plays guitar – he’s a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. My mom does musical theater, too. All of those influences were around.

There is no ‘stop’ – there’s always ‘go’ on both sides: always keep writing, always keep recording. I don’t find them to be segmented processes.

Really unfiltered personal writing is cool to me. I’m like, ‘How did you show that to everyone?’

When I’m on a stage, it’s just me, singing a song with words that I wrote and I believe in. And if I don’t believe in them anymore, I’ll stop singing that song.

Speaking and singing were equally common in my house. I started songwriting about the time that I started forming sentences.