Lucy Dacus's Home Video: Lucid and Dynamic
Via Matador Records
On June 25, 2021, the day that Lucy Dacus’s third album, Home Video, was released, many of us around the world were hit with a truck of emotions that could only be described as a gut-wrenching empathy. Dacus is renowned for her ingeniously raw lyricism, and once again refuses to fall short this time around. The album is incredibly diverse in sound, themes, and yet so consistent with who Dacus shows herself to be.
“You are a fire that can't be tamed/ You're better than ever, but I knew you when/ It's bittersweet to see you again” - Hot & Heavy
Dacus sets the scene of Home Video with her first single, Hot & Heavy, relaying how it feels to be back in a place that contains so many poignant memories, and with people whom you’ve created those memories with. It’s a perfect first track with a slightly more upbeat, pop-rock feel, capturing everyone’s attention because of how relatable it is.
“You say that I showed you the light/ But all it did in the end/ Was make the dark feel darker than before” - VBS
Vacation Bible School, an annual Christian summer event where children go to church filled with organized activities, worship, sermons, and fellowship. Dacus dives into her first experience at VBS with her first boyfriend. In an interview with Apple Music, she reveals that, “[she] took it upon [herself] to save him, and make him stop doing drugs (with an exception for snorting nutmeg)”, which she directly talks about in the song. That is one thing that is so admirable about this album, it talks straight to you. It’s poetic, but so real and simple, a play by play of her life back at home.
Some of the tracks on Home Video dig deeper into a few memories from her childhood, taking a look at how conflicting morality can be when you grow up with religion on your back. She is incredibly observational with her words, laying down syntax after heartbreaking syntax, but it all links as one song that feels like poetry when read through.
“I never touched you how I wanted to/ What can I say to your mom to let you come outside?” - Triple Dog Dare
That is why the seven minute long, “Triple Dog Dare” is the perfect finale to this masterpiece that is Home Video. Dacus and her friend are separated by her mother, unable to feel what they feel in peace. This song fits like a missing puzzle piece for so many listeners, reliving their own experiences through this track. Being queer in an unsupportive environment isn’t unfamiliar to the tongues of LGBTQ+ members everywhere, but Dacus brings us back with her to relive timelines, and alternate timelines, of what could’ve been.
“They put our faces on the milk jugs/ Missing children 'til they gave up/ Your mama was right, and through the grief/ Can't fight the feeling of relief/ Nothing worse could happen now”- Triple Dog Dare
As we journey through the last verse of the album, it holds a feeling of calm after the storm, soft voices after the distorted guitar, left with the realization that Dacus is incapable of letting her listeners feel anything less than seen.
