Lucy Dacus - Thumbs

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh, Hirway.

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Lucy Dacus has a new album coming out on March 28th called Forever is a Feeling.

So before it comes out, I thought it could be nice to revisit her Song Exploder episode from 2021.

It's about the beautiful and brutally heartbreaking song Thumbs, which I love.

Since recording that episode, Lucy's won three Grammy Awards as part of her band Boy Genius, including Album of the Year.

But back in 2021, I had a really nice afternoon talking to Lucy.

She was the first guest to come over and record with me in person after COVID hit.

So I have a lot of fond memories about this one.

And I hope you'll enjoy listening or re-listening to it with me.

Before this episode starts, I want to give a content warning.

There's some explicit language, but more crucially, the subject matter could be upsetting to some listeners.

There's an explicit description of a pretty violent act in the song, and there's some not explicit but implied behavior of a parent mistreating their child.

So please be mindful of that and take care before going ahead.

Lucy Dacus is a singer and songwriter from Richmond, Virginia.

She put out her first album in 2016, and in 2018, she formed the band Boy Genius with Julian Baker and Phoebe Bridgers.

In June 2021, she released her third album, Home Video, which includes this song, Thumbs.

The first time I heard it, I knew I wanted to ask Lucy about how and why she made it.

So, after some COVID testing, we spoke in person here in Los Angeles, and she told me the story of how thumbs took months and months to get right.

I'm Lucy Dakis.

The day that I wrote thumbs was in 2018, but the event that the song is about happened like five years before.

I was 19 and I had a friend who was crying because she had just been on the phone and she told me that her dad was in town and she hadn't seen him for a really long time.

And I knew that he was a bad dude.

And I just told her, like, I'm coming with you.

You absolutely don't have to do this alone.

We met him at a diner-ish place.

And I just immediately hated him.

And I was like raised to just not hate, you know, like love everyone.

And I still try to access that love, especially when I feel hate coming on.

But this was the first time that it just really won out.

I wanted to say to him the things that I wish she would, and I didn't.

But all the silences I tried to fill with

like, yeah, you know, she's doing amazing.

And he like kept trying to take credit and be like, I'm proud of you.

Like I tried to imply, like, has nothing to do with you.

Like, how could he be proud if he wasn't there?

Everything that she is is like from herself.

I am proud of her and I respect her so much for those things because I've like had the privilege of watching her.

Yeah.

Fuck that guy.

I started writing my own songs probably when I was like 15 and just kept them to myself or showed them to like a couple of friends.

But I had a lot of friends in Richmond just peer pressure me into doing shows.

They'd be like, we need an opener.

We know you write songs.

Just show up.

And so when this happened, I was already playing shows, but I never thought about writing about this.

I didn't even journal about it, which is odd for me.

It's hard to say if I was actively ignoring this story, but I wasn't thinking about it.

Over time, I have recognized how powerful my dissociative powers are.

My brain will simply not show me what I'm not ready to see.

And I think this was one of those things where just suddenly, for some reason, the timer went off like, dang, it took five years, but now the thought is fully baked.

And here it is out of the oven.

The day that I wrote thumbs was in Nashville when I was like out there recording some random stuff.

And everyone that I work with wanted to go get Thai food.

Jacob Lizard, who is my guitarist, and Colin Pastor, who is our co-producer.

The three of us have made everything that I've ever made.

And in the car, I had this little notebook that I carry around,

and I just started writing from the top.

You hung up the phone, and I asked you what was wrong.

Your dad has come to town.

He'd like to meet me.

I always write melody and words at the same time.

I feel like melody is sort of like a highlighter where like pitch accentuates meaning.

Like the words are the words, but they're balanced by the emotion that you put into the performance.

So we meet him at a bar.

You were holding my hand hard.

He ordered rum and coke.

I can't drink either anymore.

He hadn't seen you since the fifth grade.

Now you're 19 and you're 5'8.

He said, honey, you sure look great.

Do you get the checks I send on your birthday?

I wrote the whole song on the 15-minute car ride.

And after I was done, I felt like literally ill.

We like got to the restaurant.

I was like, you go ahead.

And they got a table.

And I just like opened the car door and kind of leaned on my legs and felt like I was going to throw up and just cried a little bit.

I would kill him

if you let me.

I would

kill him

quick and easy.

Your nails are digging

into my knee.

I don't know how you keep smiling.

Yeah, I haven't had a feeling like that before or since.

I was so nervous the first time I played thumbs.

I was on tour with Boy Genius.

That's my band with Phoebe Bridgers and Julian Baker.

And we love to show each other songs in progress.

So we were doing like a song share backstage and I started playing it.

Phoebe actually was like, you have to play this tonight.

So I played it at the show.

I knew that I needed like practice playing it since writing it made me feel sick and I knew I needed to play it before I recorded it.

I was really grateful for all the shows that I played this at because I would ask people not to record it.

It actually created a bond, the fact that people respected that.

But yeah, there were some nights that I cried or some nights that my throat closed up and I just had to like gulp and start again.

But it's like, yeah, just mutual trust that I actually hadn't felt at shows before.

But it felt so awesome.

So I'd been playing the song for a while and then asked my friend to my house so I could show it to her because I wanted to ask permission to put it on the album.

If she had told me you can't record this I wouldn't have.

I

broke down playing it for her.

I like kind of forgot to play the right chords and by the end of it, I was just like this snotty-nosed, ugly, crying little sap.

And I mean, she said the thing that has made it possible to put it out, where she was like, This is not a sad song, this is about our friendship, and it just makes me realize

that

I'm so glad you were the one there.

I clear my throat and say we ought to get home.

He offers us a ride

I reply no that's all right

and when we leave

you feel him watching

so we walk a mile in the wrong direction

when I first showed Jacob thumbs he just said sing it and play guitar and I'll do electronic drums and kind of like work out an arrangement.

And I actually just like hated it, even though it's not that bad.

I just knew it couldn't be that big.

I was listening to it and drafting my email as I was listening to it like this ain't it.

But that's okay.

That's most of recording is saying, this ain't it.

And so this demo that you hear was never supposed to be heard by anybody, but

such is the nature of this podcast.

Your nails are digging

into my ear.

I don't know how you keep smiling.

So then when we went into the studio to record it, I was like, this is the one that's going to be the easiest because I'm just going to play guitar and sing it and it'll be like the shows.

And the first night that we tried that, we thought we got it, like take two.

Cause he was

first

And Colin came into the tracking room and just like hugged me and cried like snotty cry Which is not something that he and I have done much

I record at Tracehorse Studio in Nashville, which is owned by Preston Cochrane and Scotty Prudeau or they run it and they were my high school band so everyone there is like people I've known since we were all teenagers and we were saying like we've known each other for so long, and who would have thought we'd be tracking like this?

Everyone was just saying, like, more emotional stuff than we usually say.

And then the next day, we listened back to it, and it just wasn't good.

Like, the emotion was there, but the recording was bad.

And we were like, oh, I guess we should just try again.

So we tried with an acoustic, we tried with me not playing guitar, we tried a full band version for a second, and nothing felt right.

And so like we finished the whole record, but thumbs wasn't done.

More with Lucy Dakis after this.

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I went back January of 2020 and I said, like, I wish I could just sing this a cappella and not have it be weird.

And so I just sang it and then added things underneath that.

I wanted it to be as close to not existing as possible.

Like, I wanted it to feel like a cappella plus, essentially.

And so the version that's on the record is only the vocal i clear my throat and say we ought to get home he offers us a ride i reply i know that's all right

and a pad

that is like the most boring pad i was like i want this pad to have zero personality

And then a bass synth.

The bass synth moments are just when I feel it in my gut.

That is when the bass needs to be in because it's like I feel bassy in my body.

So we walk a mile in the wrong direction.

And then the wind sound is like when I feel like kind of crazed or erratic.

I don't know how

you keep smiling.

I don't know how you keep

smiling.

I don't know how you keep smiling.

It's a little brutal because you just have to interact with the story and you don't really get an out.

There isn't some opening up of the arrangement.

It's kind of like front-to-back a story.

And I kind of hear it more as a story than as a song.

But also, I lived it, so maybe I'm biased.

I love your eyes,

and he has

them,

or you have his,

cause he was

first.

I imagine my thumbs on the irises

pressing in

until they burst.

I remember showing it to my drummer Ricardo and I remember saying to Ricardo for the first time, like, I think I'm gonna call it thumbs.

And he like jumped out of his chair and he was like, that is brutal.

That is so much.

And I think everyone in my life was really surprised, like, as was I, because it's really violent, it's unlike me.

What does it say about me that I came up with this image?

I don't know.

I think I'd like to believe that what you make comes from you, but isn't solely defining you all the time.

You two are connected by a pure coincidence,

bound to him by blood, but baby, it's all relative.

You've been in his fist ever since you were a kid.

But you don't owe him shit,

even if he said you did.

The last bit of the song that kind of like sums up what I wish for my friend, I like wrote it down

the like you don't owe him shit line.

And you know I say it twice in the song I wrote it down twice and the first time felt like it was for her

and then the second time felt like it was for me

I am adopted and my birth father is a little obsessive

basically I also needed to hear that I don't owe him shit which I didn't know I believed until I said it out loud.

My mom is actually adopted as well.

And so the idea of like chosen family has been a part of my life my whole life.

So blood ties have never really made sense to me.

And I think that they are used as a tool for manipulation.

Like you owe me this because I gave birth to you.

So yeah, I think that you don't owe

your family.

I think that it can be beautiful to feel like you want to enrich the people who have loved you with your own love.

Like that is at the core, like a very human, wonderful exchange.

But yeah,

family, blood,

it's not as important

as I think people make it out to be.

You don't owe him shit, even if he said you

did.

I think up until this point, I've been protecting myself from the task of having to play things that feel bad.

And I've watched friends write super vulnerable and painful music, and then they have to play it every night.

Like, I've been afraid to do that.

And I think I have resisted

going into certain depths.

But this record, I just did it anyways.

And I'm already starting to see, like, oh yeah, that fear was legitimate.

And I have to remind myself that, like, if it's a night where I can't handle it, I don't have to play it.

And I want to believe that anybody that really cares about me would understand that.

And I hope that it is therapeutic, and I hope that it can provide a sense of solace.

And I'm sorry that it does.

I wish less people could relate to this song, honestly.

And now, here's Thumbs by Lucy Dakis in its entirety.

You hung up the phone, and I asked you what was wrong.

Your dad has come to town,

he'd like to meet.

I said you don't have to see him, him

But for whatever reason you can't tell him no

So we meet him at a bar

You were holding my hand hard

He ordered rum and coke

I can't drink either anymore

He hadn't seen you since the fifth grade Now you're 19 and you're 5'8.

He said, Honey, you sure look great.

Do you get the checks I send on your birthday?

I would kill him

if you let me.

I would

kill him

quick and easy.

Your nails are digging

into

my knee.

I don't know how you keep smiling.

I love your eyes,

and he has them,

or you have his.

Cause he was

first

I imagine my thumbs on the irises

Pressing in

until they burst

I clear my throat and say we ought to get home

He offers us a ride

I reply, no, that's alright.

And when we leave,

you feel him watching.

So we walk a mile in the wrong direction.

I would

kill him

if you let me.

I would

kill him

quick and easy

Your nails are digging

into my knee

I don't know how you keep smiling

I don't know how you keep smiling

Oh, I don't know how you keep

I wanna take

your face between my hands

and say

you two are connected by a pure coincidence

bound to him by blood, but baby, it's all relative.

You've been in his fist ever since you were a kid.

But you don't owe him shit,

even if he said

you did.

You don't owe him shit, even if he said you

did.

To learn more, visit songexploder.net, where you'll find links to buy or stream thumbs.

This episode was made by me, with editing help from Craig Ely and Casey Deal, artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith, and production assistance from Chloe Parker.

SongExploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm.

You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hirway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder.

You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/slash shirt.

I'm Rishikesh Hirway.

Thanks for listening.

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