‘Modern Love’ Podcast: Lucy Dacus of boygenius on How to Get Talking Again

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From The New York Times, I’m Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Every week, we bring you stories and conversations inspired by the Modern Love column. We talk about love, sex, friends, family, and all the messiness of human relationships.

When I think about today’s guest, indie rock darling Lucy Dacus, there is one lyric that is seared into my mind because it is maybe too vivid. It’s this awkward description of a kiss, and it’s in her 2018 song “Night Shift.”

(SINGING) The first time I tasted somebody else’s spit

I had a coughing fit

Ugh. Dacus always sounds like she’s taking her lyrics straight from the pages of her old diaries on her solo albums, and when she plays with the Grammy winning trio boygenius. For example, in songs like “First Time,” I can hear the thrill and the drama of being in your 20s and falling in love and out of love and back in love again.

(SINGING) I can’t go back to who I was before I met you

I can’t undo what I’ve done

I wouldn’t want to

Dacus has a new album out on March 28. It’s called “Forever Is A Feeling.” And on this record, she sounds like she’s moving into yet another era. She’s singing more about queer love and lust and being ready to commit to someone, or at least try to, for the long term.

Today I talk to Lucy Dacus about the new emotional territory she’s been exploring in her music, and she reads a Modern Love essay about how hard it can be to stay connected to a partner when we inevitably keep changing as individuals.

Lucy Dacus, welcome to Modern Love.

Thanks for having me.

Lucy, you recently did something that I thought was very fun and very flirty. You posted a TikTok where you gave fans a short teaser of a new song, and you told them you were doing an open casting call for the music video. You said you were looking for, and I’m quoting you here, “People who are smooth or suave or can pretend to be. Maybe you’re a hot masc. Maybe you’re simply willing and able and not afraid to be on camera.” What made you decide to do this open call with those very specific parameters?

Well, the song is “Best Guess,” which is the first love song I’ve ever written that uses she pronouns.

(SINGING) You may not be an angel

But you are my girl

I was like, OK, this is my first like overtly little gay time in a song. So I was like, have it be like a bachelor party for me, because my dream is that people would play it at their weddings.

(SINGING) You are my best guess at the future

You are my best guess

And also just the chorus being like, you’re my best guess. That’s kind of maybe all you can give since things change. And so I like that as vows, because I intend to stick with you and love you forever. And that should be enough. [LAUGHS]

So anyways, I was thinking about marriage and stuff as should be a bachelor party for me. I’ll invite some friends and then maybe I can invite other people to be looking hot in suits. And I was like, how am I going to find people? Do we go to general casting? Is it dancers? And I was like, you know who looks into cameras and tries to look cool? People on TikTok.

That is so true.

Because it’s a skill. I’m the least suave person in that video. You have to have confidence to be able to do that. And then it took on really a life of its own. There were over 5,000 entries. I didn’t end up getting to see all of them, but what fun.

What fun.

I feel a little bit put upon that people started to expect for it to represent lesbianism or just the masc part, the butchdom. But there’s men and women and nonbinary people in the video, just hotties and having a sweet time playing pool and arm wrestling.

And boxing.

Boxing. Scenes of people looking into the camera, getting dressed and dancing. There’s a coordinated dance. And Kayley, one of the boxers, they were like, can I show my top surgery scars? And I was like, yes, absolutely. And there have been really sweet messages from people being like, I see myself for the first time. Or parents of young kids being like —

That’s really sweet.

My kid is seeing a positive — they want their queer kids to engage with queer media, but a lot of it is miserable. A lot of queer media is about suffering. And so this is just a lightweight — it’s four minutes. But it was beautiful. People were crying on set and it was really nice.

I do want to talk about the fact that you said this was the first love song where you used — you identified the person, the object of desire, as a she. Tell me about the emotions surrounding that choice.

Yeah. I mean, I haven’t written that many love songs in general. I haven’t felt that people deserve to know what’s going on with me, or I just haven’t wanted that to be a focus of any art, because then people get curious. And don’t be curious about that. And honestly, still, I’m like, mind your business. But I do have all these songs that feel very special that just come out of my life. That’s why I’m writing music is to translate my life to myself.

But in the past, I’ve kind of kept pronouns ambiguous just so the most people can relate to them or just put themselves into it. And also, it’s really about the ideas behind it more than the specific people. So I think it just puts focus more on what I’m saying than who I’m saying it to. But I thought about changing this lyric to keep with that principle, but I was like, I don’t know, I’ll give them one. I’ll give me one. It does feel good. I played it one time. I surprised open for Julien Baker. And at that line everyone went, [GASPS]:.

Wait, the crowd gasped?

The crowd was like [GASP]: and then they did a little yay, like a quiet yay.

Tell me about how did that feel to experience?

Well, it was nice. It made me laugh in the middle of the song. Made me smile. I’m like, this is good if it’s bringing some people delight.

You said, I’ll give them one as in a detail, I guess, about your life. But then you changed it immediately and you said, I’ll give me one.

Yeah, one just up front, uncloaked that’s how it is moment.

That’s how it is. I want to return to the lyrics of “Best Guess.” To me, it sounds like a love song with some very crucial caveats almost. I’m not sure what the future holds for us, but I love you. You’re hot. I think we have a chance. You sing, “I love your body, I love your mind. They will change, so will mine. But you are my best guess at the future.” Is that something you feel hanging over you when you’re falling for someone, the possibility that as you evolve and get older, you might change too much to stay together?

I don’t think it’s hanging. It doesn’t get in the way. It’s just the truth, so it’s there. I guess I’m not delusional enough to think that it isn’t there. So I like that sentiment, because being like your body will change. A lot of people are not OK with this. A lot of people at all ages are not cool with that happening. And I think it’s nice to hear your partner say, I know you’re going to get old. I still like you.

And yeah, if you change your mind, if you change who you are, I think there’s still going to be something about you. If you change your opinions or you decide you were wrong about something or you don’t have to be — even though I love you as you are today, we don’t get to freeze frame on today. You can become other things. And just wanting to support people and whoever they’re becoming.

That idea that our connection to someone we love can change reminds me of the essay, the Modern Love essay that you’re going to read for us today. Do you want to say anything about why you chose it, why you were drawn to it?

Sure, yeah. I read this, and it’s about this couple who seems like they’re running out of things to say to each other as their relationship goes on and they have kids, which is something that I fear. And also, I have a song called “Talk” that’s just about that, being at the point of the relationship where you wonder if it’s all over, that there’s not any more interest. I think this just happens a lot, and a lot of people give up or don’t know how to get out of the rut of not being able to talk to each other. And so the story kind of talks about their efforts to revive their relationship from that point.

We’re going to take a quick break. I’m really excited to hear you read this essay when we come back.

“How The Dining Dead Got Talking Again” by Molly Pascal. As two people newly in love, we talked and talked. We were in our early 30s then, so our talk included a history and a reckoning of all our previous loves, how they endured, and how they ended. We talked about our past loves to see how they stacked up against the present one. Were any of them as big as this? No. How could they be?

Falling in love for us meant falling into talk. We talked about our memories, broken bones, broken hearts, and one broken marriage. We talked about our mothers, one Jewish and one Italian, constantly cooking and feeding. We talked about our fathers, neither of whom cooked or fed. We talked about friends come and gone. We talked about our careers climbing the ladder of success, falling off of the ladder, leaning in and leaning out. We talked about our dreams of traveling, of marriage, of how many children we would like and what we would name them.

With those subjects addressed, we turned to smaller details and anecdotes. The stories about getting drunk, getting lost, crashing the car, stealing a candy bar, and falling down a flight of subway stairs before a job interview. Finally, we talked about the non-stories, the quirky facts and facets of personality, our favorite movies, what we like to eat, what we wouldn’t eat. He hated Kalamata olives. He could do without cucumbers. I hated capers and marshmallows and the end of “Ghostbusters.” He talked about rivers and rocks. I quoted Frank O’Hara and Mayakovsky. We compared 5k running times.

There was never enough time and so much to discuss. We talked about the colors of leaves, the shapes of clouds, and why the word warmth has a hidden P. We talked about sex. We talked about our wedding. We talked about our new house. We talked about furnishing it. We talked about pregnancy. We talked about the child, then the second.

Seven years into it, our marriage was different. After the machinations of getting the children to sleep, we would sit side by side in bed with computers on our laps, surfing the internet. We were not talking, not sleeping, so close and yet so far apart.

This dynamic of being physically together but emotionally disengaged had also bled into the mundane of the everyday, with too much silence and space between us on the couch and with us cooking on opposite sides of the kitchen island. We still talked, of course, but it was a different kind of talk. We spoke about the children, what they wanted for lunch, who would pick them up for school, and how to negotiate the dinner invitations for the weekend. We spoke of bills and laundry loads. We spoke about the organizational details of our day to day. These necessary conversations were the wheels on which our days turned.

We didn’t talk about sex much anymore, other than figuring out how to have it with children barging through our door and demanding to know what we were doing. Instead, we read body language. Was one of us asleep before the other? Were we touching, not touching, belly down? I might turn my back, my body curved away from my husband in a posture of rejection. He might lightly touch my back and feel my body tighten. Sign language for no sex tonight. We were so tired.

One night we went to dinner, just the two of us. And as we sat there quietly eating, a horrible memory came to mind. It wasn’t a memory of my own experience. It was a memory of my watching a scene in a movie. In “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Kate Winslet, who plays Clementine, and Jim Carrey, who plays her boyfriend Joel, are eating silently in a restaurant when Joel notices that all of the couples around them aren’t talking. Are we like those bored couples you feel sorry for in restaurants, Joel muses to himself. Are we the dining dead?

My husband and I sat there stone faced. “We need to talk,” my husband said. I waited for the bomb to drop. “No,” he said, “I mean just talk.” I thought of some of the elderly couples I knew. I thought of how they talked, if they did. It wasn’t an especially auspicious picture. They talked mostly about how hard it was to be old, dyed hair, plastic surgery, jazzercise, the weather. Too hot, too cold, too much rain. And the daily health reports. An ache here, an ache there, insomnia, joints, vision, bowels. Quite a lot of bowels.

I could see my husband and me 25 years from now, silently ingesting our dinner in some cafeteria, then returning to sleep in our downsized condo, all without being able to come up with anything of consequence to say to each other.

We decided to give talking a real go. That night, we sat purposefully on the couch. We put away the computers. We silenced our ringers. We looked at each other and smiled. We sipped some red wine.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked. “What do you want to talk about?” he asked. We stared at each other. “Did you hear what Otis said?” My husband asked. “I told him to turn off the faucet while he was brushing his teeth so he wouldn’t waste water, and he got really angry and told me that I had once wasted French fries.” We laughed.

“And the other day,” I began, then I stopped. “I think we need to make a rule,” I said. “We can’t talk about the children, because we could talk about them all day.” “OK,” he said. We tried again. We stared at each other some more. I admired how handsome and muscular my husband still looked. That was good, wasn’t it? Who needed to talk?

This wasn’t going well. We needed a different approach. We shipped the children to the in-laws, then we locked our phones in the glove compartment and drove a few hours South into West Virginia, returning to the kind of place where we had first really talked on a mountain in the woods. I was afraid. What if we had nothing left to talk about?

I remember the first few hours for the paucity of conversation. We hiked and breathed. We stopped to drink water. We listened to the racket of our bodies moving through the world, tripping, breathing, sneezing, and the sounds of nature to which I was suddenly attuned. The jackhammer of a pileated woodpecker, the predatory screech of a hawk, the frozen stare of an exposed turtle, and the soft sway of brush around a snake.

During that time, even my internal monologue was silent. It turned out that with all the time in the world to think, some of it must be spent not thinking. We felt refreshed and relieved to be absorbed in the rhythm of our steps. We stopped for lunch. We chatted about nothing, then a little something. And as we walked, we forgot about trying to talk and ended up talking. We were freed from the mechanics of life, so our talk could be too.

I had forgotten that there are certain places that promote conversation. With my children, for example, I had noticed that if I asked them over dinner what had happened at school, they would always reply nothing. But in the car the next morning, they would often transform into chatterboxes. Likewise, while hiking we relaxed and fell back into talking. We related stories we had forgotten to tell each other, funny exchanges from work. We bantered and flirted, sidestepping into tangents. We reminisced, too, about our early days, an entirely new kind of talking that comes from having known someone for a long time.

Now, several times a year, my husband and I leave the children for a weekend and go hiking. We have talked our way across the ridge of the North Fork Mountain of West Virginia, down 18 miles of the narrows in Zion National Park, through the wilds of Dolly Sods, and across mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Couples spend so much time together throughout a life. We human beings live a lot longer than we used to. Some of us stay married to the same person for 50 or 60 years. It’s no wonder we run out of things to talk about. It’s no surprise that we join the ranks of the dining dead. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

During our weekend respites, my husband and I feel inspired by a new alliance, a new adventure. We feel the power of long term coexistence and a sense of having gone through the rage of life and emerged. That’s how we fell into talk again. That’s how we fell in love again.

More from Lucy Dacus in just a moment.

Lucy, Molly Pascal ends her essay talking about how these getaways she and her husband were taking helped them fall into talking again and fall back into love again. What came up for you reading that essay?

Good for them.

That sounds lovely. Really them just affording time for each other and space and silence. I think the nature aspect seems important, especially if you’re living in cities. It’s just good for any individual, but also seemingly good for a couple. Yeah, I’m glad that they remembered that they like each other and they’re not just employees of each other. I think long term relationships, there’s a risk of feeling like you’re coworkers in a life and just disappearing into the tedium. You go to work and you come home and then you work on being at home.

Have you had that happen before?

Yeah, I have felt like both people, myself and the other person, will sometimes be like, OK, the priorities are our tasks. Not entirely. I don’t think I’ve been lost to this level of —

Disconnection.

Disconnection, yeah. Good word. But yeah, I do fear it, because I feel like you see it all the time.

Molly talks about, I mean, obviously nature is huge for her and her husband to reconnect. She also mentions that she noticed some spaces are better for conversation than others. Don’t you feel like driving a long drive with someone, and this relates to your song “Talk” that we’re going to talk about, that’s an amazing space for conversation. Sitting next to someone in the front seat of a car, both of your eyes on the road, driving.

The eye contact thing. I wonder about that, because you can’t make eye contact because someone has to look at the road. So it’s like that pressure’s off a little bit. But I’m a big believer in the power of liminal space. Everything good happens to me between point A and point B, it seems. Yeah, in between what’s supposed to happen. That’s where all the surprise is. So yeah, going for a walk, road trips, in transit. I write most of my songs in that space, walking or traveling and becoming comfortable with silence or just stillness and even pointlessness.

When you do something that doesn’t have much meaning, it kind of makes room for other meaningful things to take over. Nothing is expected of me in this moment. That’s the other thing is when you behave out of what’s this person expecting of me? What are my expectations? Someone recently told me that expectations are premeditated resentments.

Whoa. Expectations are premeditated resentments.

Yeah.

I’m going to be thinking about that for a while.

Yeah, that was a big yikes for me.

How did that hit? Where did that hit?

I was just like, phew. Say that.

Well, what does it mean to you? What does that mean to you?

So I guess expectations are — the antithesis would be just accepting what the world has to offer or what a person has to offer. And I think it’s OK to have obligations or intentions towards things. But expectations are people’s rules for each other that maybe it works out when they’re easy to meet, but often I think they’re very pressureful. And yeah, I think that if someone is not meeting your expectations of them, you can resent them for that. But that’s so your business that you came up with expectations in the first place.

I’m thinking back to the essay and how Molly Pascal and her husband maybe had this expectation of a certain kind of talk later on into their relationship. And then resentment isn’t a word that’s used in this essay, but there is a real distance that’s created. Yeah.

Well, who knows if this came up for them and it’s not in the essay? But I think it can feel really personal. It’s like, why aren’t you curious about me? Why am I not satisfactory to you? And that’s a lot of projection and fear of just do you even care? That has been something that I feel like if the other person’s not asking me questions, I’m just like, it’s hard to — I have to be invited to share things sometimes.

I was going to say. I’m curious. What are the things you want someone to know about you when you’re in this deep, relationship building, sharing part of a connection? I can give my own as you think.

Give me your examples and I’ll think on it.

OK. Well, and I did have the benefit of foresight on this one. So I already thought about it. But I’ll stall and give you some time. One thing about me is I am extremely effusive over text. I use a billion exclamation points. And I think when I’m first meeting someone, it’s raising alarm bells. It’s like, why are you yelling? Are you freaking out? Is everything a problem? I’m like, I’m five minutes away with a billion exclamations. And so what I want someone to know when they’re getting to know me is that’s just how I talk.

Oh, my God, I’m going to just say I’m the opposite and I do want people to know this. No, even when I first meet people, I will say, by the way, I’m a bad texter. It’s not on you. I’m one of those. I’ll get a text and be like, that’s so nice. And then it’s over. The transaction has happened. The conversation happened in my head.

So you don’t respond?

But I don’t know that I don’t. Or I’ll text out something and not hit send because I’ll be like, let me think about that, if that’s really what I wanted to say. And then it just disappears and something else becomes urgent. Because I get a lot of texts. Texting is where my job is happening.

But it’s like you want someone to know I am thinking about you, it’s just I’m kind of overwhelmed by life stuff and by job stuff.

But also similarly, why do we have rules around this? You should just know people’s heart.

And I’m trusting that I still like you.

Can I ask you? And this is not — I’m just curious. Does that change when you’re seeing someone romantically? Do you give — throw an emoji in maybe to let them know?

I love an emoji. I’ve only ever been romantically with people that were friends, so they already know this about me.

Well, that’s nice.

So that’s nice. And also, all my real ones know that we just need to plan to see each other and I will be present. Because the good thing about being bad at texting is you’re not texting during dinner. I am not on my phone.

Neither am I.

OK, cool.

OK, that wasn’t a read on you. But some people, I have some friends that are like, why do you never text me back? And then we hang out and they’re texting. And I’m like, I think you want the texting more than in person, and that’s actually OK if that’s real for you, it’s just not compatible.

You have a song on your new album called “Talk.” It’s extremely related to this essay you just read. And the scene in the song is two people driving on a windy road in the dark, and the song you sing.

(SINGING) Where can we turn anymore

Pleased to talk for hours

And at the end of the song you sing, “I didn’t mean to start talking in the past tense. I guess I don’t know what I think till I start talking.” How I hear it is the protagonist in the song is taking this long silence between them and their partner to mean that the best days of their relationship are in the past, and for that reason, they have to end it. Is that the correct read? Is that the correct interpretation?

Yeah. I mean, this song is about even in those spaces, like driving where it used to be so verdant conversation, if that’s not possible, then it’s like, maybe we’ve really tapped it out, and you’re just not interested. And then the second verse there, it’s maybe a little more dark, but it’s about having sexual expectations when you aren’t connecting as people anymore, which is just a nightmare for me.

And it’s like, so you just want something from me and you don’t want me, or you’re taking me for granted and feeling unseen in those situations, very dissociative for me. So basically, just the idea of the body having need for you, but the person not. And knowing each other physically. So it’s like, I know how to do this. But kind of that scary expectation. Somewhere in this, this person started to feel alone while we were together.

Have you experienced that sort of fear of disconnection, what we hear about in the song, have you experienced that?

Yeah. I mean, just looking at someone and being like, where are you? We’re both here, but you’re not. Or even feeling that myself. I feel like my mind can go to other things than where people wish it would go. And I don’t know if it’s anybody’s fault or if it’s just a sign to move on. Basically, the story is the good version. In this song, it’s on a road trip at a hotel doing something different, and it’s not working.

Yeah I mean, in the essay you just read, they make a totally different decision, right? They decide to fight for their relationship and work for it. And I guess I wonder what would you need from a relationship to want to put in the work like Molly Pascal and her husband?

They seem compatible in the amount of effort they both want to put in. It’s not like this was how I convinced my husband to talk to me again. It’s how we did this. And they seem like they’re both willing and that they both know that there is a problem. I mean, I think even her husband started the conversation, which —

He said, we have to talk.

Yeah. And I love when other people start conversations with me. I think I have a reputation of being the person that will put the issue on the table and be like, here’s this, let’s speak on it. I’m a conflict lover. Because where else are you going to learn? I mean, I don’t mean getting angry and fighting and letting past wounds play out. Though in good relationships, that should be allowed and made space for. But defending your own heart is important. And if other people come to you and are like, that hurt me or I didn’t like this, maybe you get to be like, here’s my intention because I didn’t mean to. I really, I’m sorry. Why is it so hard?

That’s an amazing question that if we had the answer to it, you and I —

Things would be easier.

We would rule the world.

Yeah.

Well, I’m thinking about do you have a kind of rule or, I don’t know, any tactics that you have to encourage the right kind of talk with a partner?

Yeah, I think, yeah, it’s not really rules, but it’s just eye time. Be like, we have to look at each other.

Wait, eye time, E-Y-E.

Yeah, E-Y-E. Yeah, not like me.

Do you call it that?

Yeah, like need some eye time. Being like, that’s the only thing I’m doing right now is seeing you.

Is it a daily occurrence?

It’s just whenever you need it. It’s like when you’re thirsty, you drink water. Just need eye time. Some days you need more than others.

Molly Pascal published her Modern Love essay back in 2016, so we reached out to her to ask if there were any updates. And she said, “Matt and I will Mark our 17th wedding anniversary this year. We still sometimes sit in silence at restaurants, of course, but I find myself more comfortable with the lulls now. Matt and I have hiked and talked our way across Iceland, Norway, Jordan, the Canadian Rockies, the Adirondacks, and Utah.” Good for them.

That is so cool. Good on you.

Good on you, Molly and Matt. Do you feel like you have experienced — I know you’re 29, right?

Yeah.

Roughly the same age as — roughly the same age as me. I’m 30. Unless we married our kindergarten crush, we would not have the opportunity to be with someone for decades in an adult relationship. Does the prospect of that kind of long term relationship excite you? Does it scare you?

I like it. I mean, I love long books, because you get so much time to know the characters and see them change. And I just feel that way in life. The characters of my life only get richer as I know them. And also just how humbling to be like, oh, I didn’t get it and now I do all the time. Or I was wrong. Underrated, saying I was wrong. People should be saying I was wrong more. Because yeah, what a way to notice that you’re still alive, that you’re changing and growing.

Lucy Dacus, thank you so much for talking with me today.

This was great. I had an awesome time.

Lucy Dacus’s new album, “Forever Is A Feeling,” drops March 28, and she’ll be on tour this spring and summer. You can find a link to the essay you heard today, “How The Dining Dead Got Talking Again,” in our show notes.

This episode was produced by Reva Goldberg with help from Amy Pearl, Davis Land, and Emily Lang. It was edited by Gianna Palmer and our executive producer, Jen Poyant. Production management by Christina Djossa. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode by Elisheba Ittoop, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Rowan Niemisto, Dan Powell, and Aman Sahota.

This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez with studio support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pittman. Special thanks to Mahima Chablani, Nell Gallogly, and Jeffrey Miranda, and to our video team Brooke Minters, Felice Leone, Dave Mayers, and Eddie Costas. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Miya Lee is the editor of Modern Love projects. If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to The New York Times, the instructions are in our show notes. I’m Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.

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