Lucy Dacus Forever Is A Feeling
In musical terms, 2025 may go down as The Year of Grown-Up Thinking. Already, albums from songwriters as disparate as Jason Isbell and Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) have moved well past the fun, excitement and danger of youth to look at how growing older (and encountering adult responsibilities) changes both priorities and perception. The latest to feel the less-than-exhilarating onset of maturity is Lucy Dacus. Even though she’s roughly a month away from her 30th birthday, she’s always had a more mature approach to writing about even the most callow dose of emotion (think back to 2018’s “Night Shift,” a realistically grown-up approach to avoiding the object of a first heartbreak). Four albums into a career in which she’s lived (and loved, and lost) enough, she’s ready for Forever Is A Feeling, a record which has her speaking with an earned degree of authority on what grown-up emotion is.
After the instrumental intro, “Calliope Prelude” (a brief violin piece performed by Phoenix Rousiamanis), Dacus begins the album proper with “Big Deal.” Her new, lusher sound sets in here – more violin, plus piano, pedal steel, and the first of several appearances from GRAMMY-winning guitarist Madison Cunningham. Lyrically, Dacus vacillates between honoring a potential lover’s existing commitments and going all in – “We both know that it would never work/You’ve got your girl, you’re gonna marry her/And I’ll be watching in a pinstripe suit/Sincerely happy for both of you.” The pleasantly poppy “Ankles” doubles down on that gamble, adding action to emotion – “Pull me by the ankles to the edge of the bed/And take me like you do in your dreams.”
Even with the most confessional of songwriters (and Dacus certainly fits that description), it’s a bit perilous to make direct correlation between lyrics and real life. Nonetheless, with Dacus’s recent confirmation that she and boygenius bandmate Julen Baker are (as has long been rumored) dating, it’s difficult NOT to see the two of them across Forever Is A Feeling. Both Baker and Phoebe Bridgers make appearances on the record. “Modigilani” (likely titled after the Italian painter – “Modigliani melancholy got me long in the face”) portrays lovers (musicians?) living a world apart – “You make me homesick for places I’ve never seen before/How’d you do that? How’s tomorrow so far?” The pretty, acoustic “Bullseye” (featuring Hozier on vocals) acknowledges a lack of anonymity in Dacus’s life – “Wish I could come to the show but I understand/Can’t just walk in like any other fan/But I always loved the way you play guitar.” And the album’s most overt rocker, “Most Wanted Man,” references the fancy restaurants and $700 hotel rooms familiar to musicians who’ve attained a certain level of success.
But the resounding messages on Forever Is A Feeling are more universal than indie supergroup musings. The laidback “Best Guess,” enhanced by Cunningham’s excellent guitar work, offers nothing more concrete than the promise of what we already know – “You were my best friend before you were/My best guest at the future.” And, circling back to the top of the album, that friendship seems poised to outlast whatever else may (or may not) come along – “But if we never talk about it again/There’s something else I need you to understand/You’re a big deal.” Love, infatuation and bandmates come and go. Maturity, at its best, tells you the ones you want to stay.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Lost Time” – This cataloging of life’s little moments gets BIG loud toward the end – it’s going to play VERY well at Red Rocks this summer.
Forever Is A Feeling was produced by Lucy Dacus, Collin Pastore, Jake Finch, Blake Mills, Bartees Strange and Andrew Lappin, engineered by Will MacLellan, Joseph Lorge, Collin Pastore, Jake Finch, Preston Cochran, Andrew Lappin, Bartees Strange, David Boucher and Michael O’Brien, mixed by Lars Stalfors and mastered by Ruairi O’Flaherty. All songs written by Lucy Dacus (co-writes go to Blake Mills). Musicians on the album include Dacus (vocals, acoustic guitar, Solina, Juno, synths, celeste), Phoenix Rousiamanis (violin, piano, celeste, toy piano, pump organ), Blake Mills (Gamelan, piano, electric and acoustic guitars, Osmose, tenor bass, synthesizers, electric bass, Moog bass, harmonium, keyboard synthesizer, drum loop/programming, drums), Jake Finch (drums, acoustic guitar, synth bass, bass, sub bass, Juno, cello, synths, horror strings, Moog bass, percussion, electric bass, mandolin, piano), Madison Cunningham (electric and acoustic guitars), Collin Pastore (pedal steel, horror piano, Juno), Abe Rounds (drums, percussion), Karl Reichl (cello), Phoebe Bridgers (vocals), Hannah Kim (harp), Julien Baker (vocals), Ted Poor (Gamelon, drums, percussion), Bartees Strange (drums, synths, piano, triangle), Melina Duterte (drum programming, synths, bass), Andrew Lappin (drum programming, shaker, tambourine), Chloe Saavedra (drums), Benny Bock (CS-60 synth, Udo Super-6 synth, Mellotron) and Andrew Hozier (vocals),
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Check out tour dates here: https://www.lucydac.us/tour/#/