Photos by Dylan Simmons & Kiara Mack
Tucked into a corner on the scenic Sunset Boulevard, independent bookstore Book Soup hosted a conversation with Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus following the release of her latest album, Forever Is A Feeling. A bookstore may seem like a curious choice to celebrate a music release until you take a look at the breadth of romantic lyrics featured on the record, all part of Dacus’s attempt to “write the book on you.” The night began with a conversation led by acclaimed author Melissa Febos, followed by a Q&A session between Dacus and a lucky selection of devoted fans.
There was a comforting intimacy to the evening. I’ve seen Dacus perform on four separate occasions, but to be mere feet from her while she discussed her private, introspective writing process was truly an experience I’ll cherish forever. She talked about believing how “writing is in the living,” and shared her analogy between flirting and creating. With both, there’s the lingering question in the air of “What’s gonna happen?” as well as an inkling that “there might be something there” that can and should be explored. She evaluates her creative process in a succinct manner: “If I’m not impressing my friends, it’s not okay.”
While Dacus tries to avoid being influenced by other songwriters, she shared that she is very inspired by other singers, citing Nina Simone, Barbara Streisand, and Tom Waits. While she was quick to clarify that she doesn’t sing like them, she remains fascinated by the interplay between their voices and their lyrics.
The audience burst into a fit of giggles when Febos, inspired by the bookstore setting, read off some of Lucy Dacus’s silliest five-star Goodreads reviews: Demian by Hermann Hesse, In the Café of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano, The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion, and Notes on a Native Son by James Baldwin, to name a few. A discussion of literature ensued, with Dacus explaining that she much prefers “tomes” over short stories, which she compared to “[going] on a first date with someone that could be the love of your life, but you’ll never see them again.” As for whether she’d ever try her hand at writing a book, Dacus admitted she has ideas, but is too self-critical of her writing to go through with them; this inner critic, however, does not inhibit her songwriting.
Every now and then, someone would pass by the store and take a peek into the windows out of curiosity, their eyes lighting up at the sight of Dacus, a reminder that she’s won Grammys, been name dropped by Taylor Swift, and played to a sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl, making her far from an obscure indie singer.
For the Q&A portion of the event, attendees were given index cards to jot down questions for Dacus. Regarding a question about her upcoming tour openers — jasmine.4.T and Katie Gavin — Dacus described them as two of her favorite songwriters in existence. When asked for recommendations, she listed “Highfield” and “Skin On Skin” (the demo of which inspired “Ankles”) for jasmine.4.T, and “Aftertaste,” “Sketches,” and “The Baton” for Gavin.
When asked about the album’s sequencing, Dacus explained her belief that the end of the record has to feel earned, accomplished by introducing a question at the beginning and arriving at an enlightening conclusion by the end. The end of this record is marked by “Lost Time,” a song that Dacus was admittedly most worried to put out, but also the one she’s most proud of. She also shared her unusual preference to make production decisions based on the sequencing of the track list, a creative choice perhaps best exemplified by when she chooses to use electric guitars on this album. While she primarily felt these songs “deserved a more thoughtful and ornate production than what’s expected of me,” the electric guitars on “Talk” and “Most Wanted Man” came from her mindset that “if the rule is ‘no,’ then every time I break it, it’s really on purpose.” Since the underpinning of all love is loss, Dacus wanted the record to feel “like a heavy and severe happiness.” She briefly and beautifully described Forever Is A Feeling as an album “about love, from a lover to people interested in love.”
Before Lucy Dacus bid us farewell for the night, a fan seated in the front row gifted her a plush by the name of Goosey Dacus, bringing all the wholesome laughter of the event full circle. On “Bullseye,” Hozier brings Dacus’s writing to life, singing, “I’ll miss borrowin’ your books to read your notes in the margin / The closest I came to readin’ your mind / The answers to the questions only made more questions / I hope you’re never fully satisfied.” I imagine that’s how everyone lucky enough to be in attendance Saturday night will think of Lucy Dacus going forward, with each drive along the Sunset Strip and each visit to Book Soup bringing up welcome memories of the magical night we shared with her.
Lucy Dacus will bring her Forever Is A Feeling tour to the Greek Theatre on May 14th and 15th. Listen to Forever Is A Feeling here:
