Quotes from Lucy Dacus

Before I even pick up a guitar, usually the words are done. So I'm not first and foremost a musician. I'm first and foremost a writer.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Hopefully when you listen to a song, you can say, 'That's me,' or 'That's someone I know' - you relate to it in a way that's cathartic.

I called it 'Historian' because I feel like most of my creative efforts are efforts to capture something or to document it.

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.

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.

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

I think 'Historian' is ultimately a positive record, but I was a little bit worried about taking people into a dark world. I tried to do it with as much care as possible, but it's not easy to ask people to think about death or loss or confusion.

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?

My mom is an elementary-school music teacher. For her, music is an educational tool.

I couldn't have imagined working on a film I didn't believe in.

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.

That's my main complaint with Murakami: that he writes these complex males and then really static women.

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.

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.

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.

Joan Didion's 'The Year of Magical Thinking' comes to mind as an example of a piece of media that I really respect and would hope to emulate: just her courage in looking at her husband's death and the attentiveness that she has in how she looks at it, and the unflinching gaze that she communicates from looking into death.

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.

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.