“The first time I tasted somebody else’s spit I had a coughing fit,” she sings on Historian’s opening track, “Night Shift”.

With her critically acclaimed albums (“one of rock’s best pens”, pop-culture website Vulture called her), Dacus has been praised for her ability to write raw, observational lyrics – most of which draw from her life and the people around her. As part of the indie “supergroup” trio Boygenius, Dacus’ vocals provide emotional punches that fit perfectly with those of her bandmates, fellow singers Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker.

It only seems logical, then, that Dacus has finally touched upon the most formative times of her past. She plunges headfirst into her childhood in her latest, most intimate album yet, Home Video. Many of the songs refer to Dacus’ hometown of Richmond, Virginia, the United States.

“I love Richmond,” Dacus told to The Jakarta Post on July 27, “but sometimes it’s not easy to love,” she added. Taking her time to do interviews on a tour bus, she expressed her genuine love for, as well as frustration with, her childhood city, which became the basis of Home Video, released on June 25 on US indie label Matador Records.

“I think, since [Richmond] is a really small town, some people get frustrated with how small it is and get bitter or have big egos for no reason,” she said.

As an introduction to the lives of the people the album explores, the music video for its lead single “Hot & Heavy” finds Dacus coming back to the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, reunited with her friends and families as they watch home video footage of little Dacus together on screen. “Being back here makes me hot in the face,” Dacus sings, opening the floodgate of memories she has held dearly for a long time. In fact, some of the songs were years in the making.

“I wrote [‘Hot & Heavy’] in 2017, before Historian even came out,” she said. She also played the fan-favorite “Thumbs”, which appears on the new album, at live shows many times before the album was released.

The long time spent on this album was perhaps warranted given its subject matter. Unlike her previous albums, Home Video presents specific moments of her life back in Richmond, like scenes from a spool of film Dacus has kept for a while before finally taking out for processing. In it, she talks about growing up Christian, her feeling of guilt and confinement, her first loves, her then-understanding of her sexuality and more personal accounts that can be endearing and, at times, painful to hear.

“I was trying to speak as accurately [as possible] to who I was and tried to be as honest as possible,” Dacus said.

Nostalgic: the cover art of 'Home Video' finds Dacus sitting in her childhood theater as VHS tape's blue screen shines in the dark. (Lucy Dacus management/Courtesy of Matador Records)

Telling the stories

This honesty that she swears upon remains throughout the album, from her vivid accounts in “Christine”, in which Dacus describes her ride home with her friend and her less-deserving partner in minute detail, to a harsh meet-up between her friend and that friend’s estranged father in “Thumbs”. “He hadn’t seen you since fifth grade. Now you’re nineteen and you’re five-eight,” she sings, before claiming that she would “kill him” for putting his own daughter through such mental suffering.

Like “Thumbs”, some of the songs are rooted in such deeply personal accounts that Dacus had to write them carefully in order to do justice to the story. The penultimate track “Please Stay”, which she said was the hardest to write, deals with an attempt to talk a loved one out of suicide. “It is such a sensitive topic, and I didn’t want to make it about me, since it’s really about the people who are in crisis,” she said.

The only time Dacus refrains from honest storytelling is when she trades it for an honest expression of desire in the fictional final track, “Triple Dog Dare”, which tells a queer, coming-of-age story between Dacus and a childhood friend. In this alternate reality, their love finally culminates as they run away together from their parents.

“I think I just realized [when writing it] that I can do anything that I want in a song,” she said. “I can be as honest as I want, I can try to keep it nonfiction or I can make fiction, and that was a very freeing idea.”

Visual and musical influences

Dacus’ visually detailed lyrics and what critics have called her “confessional songwriting” have been acknowledged by many since she released her first album, No Burden, in 2016. Some connected that ability to her biggest musical influence, Bruce Springsteen, while others highlighted the fact that she was a theatre kid at heart. But it might help to know that Dacus was also a film student for quite some time.

“There are two movies that I think about a lot,” she said. “The Beaches of Agnès, which is [French film director] Agnès Varda’s autobiographical film, where she, as an old lady, tells her own life story. [...] And then also Amarcord by [Italian film director] Federico Fellini, which is an autobiographical film about his childhood.”

Brighter tunes: Unlike her previous albums, Dacus' latest one is much shorter and denser. (Lucy Dacus management/Courtesy of Matador Records)

The choices might shed light on her love for autobiography in general, as well as her prowess in telling her own.

But above all, Dacus’ inspiration in singing and writing stems in large part from her home, her family and the people around her. She loves Springsteen because her father was – and still is – a huge fan of his music. And she was taught how to harmonize by her mother using The Human League’s 80s hit “Don’t You Want Me”.

“My mom used to play that song in the car. Then, we would do the two-part harmony when I was a kid,” she said, before singing the chorus.

Though it might seem that Dacus’ mother, a popular music teacher in Richmond, was the one who steered her toward a career in music, it turns out to have been the opposite. “It’s not that she ever discouraged me, but she always encouraged me to do a job that would actually pay well,” she said with a hearty laugh, “because she works at an elementary school, does piano lessons and plays piano for theatre, so she's always had three to five jobs my whole life,” she added.

Long-time listeners and newcomers alike can see how Dacus cherishes the people and memories that are infused in every second of the album, both the bitter and the sweet parts.

“Mom, you know, she likes [the album], she’s proud of me, but there’s also some things that have started some conversations,” she said, noting the consequences of her honesty. But just like in the album, Dacus tries to remain unapologetic about it. “I can’t undo what I’ve done. I wouldn’t want to,” she sings in “First Time”.