40 Fun Facts About Lucy Dacus

After a near-fatal scare following her debut album sessions, Lucy Dacus stopped doing what?

Driving a car ended for her after a spinout on a four-lane highway beside a cliff: her vehicle spun three times and stopped undamaged. Minutes later a phone call revealed she was being cheated on.

Lucy Dacus's debut album was recorded at guitarist Jacob Blizard's request for what purpose?

A school project for Blizard is why the album exists. Its songs were drawn from about 30 that Dacus wrote while holding down a day job at a camera shop.

Which Twilight star directed three Boygenius videos that were combined into one promotional short?

Kristen Stewart directed all three clips, and the combined short premiered at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles with a live Q&A from the band.

Lucy Dacus called which politician a war criminal after he recommended a Boygenius song in 2023?

Barack Obama had put the trio's song on his annual summer playlist. Dacus quote-tweeted the list with two words and a frowning face.

At a Tennessee show, how did Lucy Dacus and Boygenius protest a law signed by Governor Bill Lee?

They performed in drag because the law restricted drag shows in public. Two months earlier the band had used its Coachella set to speak up for trans rights.

Lucy Dacus bought her first guitar, a three-quarter-scale Ibanez, as a youngster from which website?

Craigslist supplied the small Ibanez. Her adoptive mother is a professional pianist and music teacher, so music was part of the household long before the guitar arrived.

Lucy Dacus has said Forever Is a Feeling is about her feelings for which fellow songwriter?

Julien Baker had joked to Dacus years earlier about a pipe dream of starting a band together. Dacus told The New Yorker the album is about coming to terms with falling for a bandmate.

Which Lucy Dacus breakup song kicks off Historian and made NPR listeners' top 25 of the decade?

Night Shift sprawls across six and a half minutes, and Dacus put it first on purpose: she wanted the record to start with heartbreak and spend the rest of its length rebuilding.

Which Boygenius single won Grammys for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance in 2024?

Not Strong Enough made Boygenius the first all-female band to win either rock prize. The trio wrote it in secret while fans wondered whether they would ever record together again.

"I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore" was the first single from which Lucy Dacus debut album?

No Burden was first issued by a small Virginia label in February 2016. One critic who scored it nine out of ten named this opening track the highlight of the whole record.

Lucy Dacus grew up in Mechanicsville, a suburb of which Virginia city, home of EggHunt Records?

Richmond scientists and sculptors fill the audience in the video for her first single, and her third album, Home Video, is built from stories of her teenage years there.

Lucy Dacus recorded her debut album in a single day in which city, far from her Virginia home?

Nashville hosted the one-day session with a band that had barely learned the songs. She returned there for Historian, this time taking a full week.

Which independent label signed Lucy Dacus and re-released her debut album in September 2016?

Matador went on to release her next two solo albums and the first Boygenius EP. The deal came within months of her debut's quiet first release on a tiny hometown label.

Which label released Forever Is a Feeling, Lucy Dacus's major-label debut as a solo artist?

Geffen released it in March 2025 after three solo albums on an indie. It reached the top 20 of the Billboard 200, something none of her earlier solo records had done.

What did Lucy Dacus study at Virginia Commonwealth University before leaving to avoid student debt?

Film was her subject until she walked away from the program. The interest stuck: her third album is named after home movies and uses family footage in its videos.

Which vintage TV format inspired the look of Lucy Dacus's "I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore" video?

1960s talk shows inspired the set, where nearly 40 extras sit in as the studio audience and mouth along to the words. The director wanted it heartfelt and a little campy, with no irony.

Which magazine named Lucy Dacus's "I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore" the 17th-best song of 2016?

Rolling Stone later ranked Dacus herself: in 2023 it placed her 213th on its list of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Lucy Dacus has called the opening track of Historian her only breakup song; who inspired it?

Her former bassist was also her ex: the two split up right after finishing the tour for her debut album. She placed the song first because a breakup is so immediately relatable.

On which TV show did Boygenius appear in a sketch with Timothée Chalamet in November 2023?

Saturday Night Live booked the trio as that week's musical guest, so they played two songs as well as joining the sketch. Three months later they announced a hiatus.

Lucy Dacus was a supporting act in 2025 on which pop star's Hit Me Hard and Soft tour?

Billie Eilish took her out as an opener in the same year Dacus headlined her own Forever Is a Feeling tours of North America and Europe.

Which guest singer duets with Lucy Dacus on "Bullseye", a track from Forever Is a Feeling?

Hozier shares the vocal on the album's eleventh track and is credited in the liner notes under his full name, Andrew Hozier-Byrne.

Boygenius covered "The Parting Glass" in November 2023 as a tribute to which late singer?

Sinéad O'Connor had died that July. The trio recorded the cover with the band Ye Vagabonds and gave all proceeds to a charity chosen by her estate.

Lucy Dacus sang the labor anthem "Bread and Roses" at the inauguration of which New York City mayor?

Zohran Mamdani's public swearing-in at City Hall in 2026 featured the song, which grew out of a 1911 poem and is tied to the 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

After a restrictive Texas law took effect in 2021, Lucy Dacus pledged her earnings there to what?

Abortion funds received all the money from her Texas dates, and she told fans coming to the Houston and San Antonio concerts to bring extra cash to donate too.

The cover of Boygenius's 2018 debut EP is a nod to which folk-rock supergroup's 1969 debut album?

Crosby, Stills & Nash were photographed on a battered sofa outside an abandoned West Hollywood house. When they went back to reshoot, the house had been demolished.

For Halloween 2019, Lucy Dacus covered which Phil Collins hit she called the best eerie bop ever?

In the Air Tonight was one of seven singles she put out that year to mark dates on the calendar, from Valentine's Day to New Year's Eve, later gathered on one EP.

Which Home Video song did some Lucy Dacus fans first receive in the mail on a VHS tape?

Thumbs had long been a staple of her concerts before the tapes went out in February 2021. Dacus said writing it made her feel weird, almost sick.

Raised in a Baptist church, Lucy Dacus later took up which practice that she says feels religious?

Tarot card reading suits her because it can be taken as seriously or as lightly as you want, and she says reading for people is a fast way to get to know them deeply.

Lucy Dacus released a 2019 cover to mark the birthday of which rock star, a date her father shares?

Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" was the song she chose. Pitchfork called it the strongest cover of her 2019 series for recasting the hit as a celebration of lesbian love.

Boygenius sang backing vocals on "Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris", a 2020 solo single by which rock frontwoman?

Hayley Williams of Paramore featured the trio on Petals for Armor II, one of two EPs that led into her first solo album.

Which Forever Is a Feeling single did Lucy Dacus perform on Jimmy Fallon's show the day it was released?

Ankles arrived alongside the album announcement and a video starring actress Havana Rose Liu. That night Dacus played it on television with a string section, wearing the red gown from the video.

Which songwriter do Boygenius thank in the liner notes of The Record for inspiring "Cool About It"?

Paul Simon is thanked for inspiration. A different track on the album borrows a line from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" and is named after him.

Lucy Dacus has compared her own downstroke-driven guitar style to that of which punk band?

The Ramones are her own point of comparison. Next to her two Boygenius bandmates, one a ripper and one a delicate player, she says she is just kind of clanging along.

Which Lucy Dacus-led song was among the three singles that announced Boygenius's The Record?

True Blue has Dacus on lead vocals, and a Clash review singled out her contributions to the album, naming it alongside "We're in Love".

Which Lucy Dacus single has a video starring Towa Bird, Naomi McPherson, E.R. Fightmaster and Cara Delevingne?

Best Guess was first heard, then untitled, when Dacus made a surprise appearance at a Brooklyn concert in October 2024. Its video was teased with a public casting call.

Which director made a video for Lucy Dacus's Historian opener five years after the album came out?

Jane Schoenbrun, the director of I Saw the TV Glow, cast Dacus as a hotel employee who stumbles across a fantastical party. Back in 2018 there had been neither the time nor the funding to make a video.

Boygenius recorded The Record in January 2022 at which studio in Malibu, California?

Shangri-La, now owned by producer Rick Rubin, was converted into a studio in the 1970s to the exact specifications of Bob Dylan and The Band. The Band's interviews for The Last Waltz were shot there.

Boygenius sometimes write their name with an X at each end, a joking nod to which punk subculture?

Straight edge uses the X as its symbol, and one member was involved in that scene as a teen. Styling a quiet indie trio as extremely punk was the whole joke.

Each Boygenius member brought one nearly finished song to their 2018 EP; which was Lucy Dacus's?

Bite the Hand was her contribution. The trio then wrote, recorded and self-produced the whole EP in four days at Sound City in Los Angeles, hiring only women for the sessions.

Which guitar approach does Lucy Dacus use to ease the pain she feels between her knuckles?

Open tunings let her hold chord shapes and move them around the fingerboard with less work. She says not knowing for sure which chords she is playing helps her write.