In the music video for “Ankles,” the first single from Lucy Dacus’s fourth studio album, the singer plays a pleasure-seeking Victorian-era damsel that has escaped from a painting to gallivant around Paris. Her foil is a stern museum guard trying to corral her back into her frame.
Dacus came up with the idea as a way to reflect the push and pull between curiosity and restraint in the song. Also, she said, “The song is pretty horny, so it’s not like I was going to recreate what happens.”
For Dacus, frames have become a recurring motif. She used one in a video for a song from her second album, “Historian,” when she was a rising indie singer-songwriter. And she poses in one on the album cover for her latest LP, “Forever Is a Feeling.”
“Framing is such a huge part of art,” Dacus said. “What are you putting in the confines of the frame? What are you filling in time? What are you putting in front of people?”
The shape of “Forever Is a Feeling” emerged when Dacus realized she was writing songs about love. (Then she wrote more of them.) It’s her first solo album since boygenius — the indie-rock supergroup she formed with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker — grew to an arena-size, Grammy-winning band. (Dacus recently revealed that Baker is the subject of one of those love songs.)
In a phone interview before flying to Paris to perform, Dacus shared the cultural essentials that help fill her life. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Sunscreen
I wear sunscreen every day. I started doing this maybe a year ago, after I moved to Los Angeles. Whenever people visit my house, I have sunscreen for everybody.
Robert Altman Movies
Last year, me and my girlfriend were choosing directors and watching two or three of their movies to feel like we got a sense of their style. My high school film teacher showed “Nashville,” and it’s so dark and it’s so funny but it’s also so bright. People are talking over each other, the dialogue is more textural.
iPhone Voice Memos
I would be really lost in terms of songwriting if I didn’t have voice memo and notes apps right next to each other. When I’m busy and out and about, I’ll record a quick voice memo to get the melody and the lyrics together, but if I can’t make noise, I’ll go into my notes app. The very last moment of the whole record is a voice memo of me playing through “Lost Time” for the first time.
‘Survivor’
I have seen 43 seasons. Going from Season 1 and watching the evolution through time is just a unique experience. You see how television changes, you see how society changes. Even how people approach cameras. In the beginning, no one had social media; no one was going to be an online influencer. Not only is the show entertaining, but it feels like a history lesson.
‘Healing Back Pain’
I have two herniated discs. Through the years, I had to cancel tours and trips, and I was bedridden for six weeks at one point. I threw out my back the day before a tour one time and I did a couch tour. Because that was so public, people came out of the woodwork telling me to get this book. I swear to you: I have not had a flare-up since reading it.
LePen Pens
There are LePen pen packs that are color coded and when I journal, I go in color order. Or I’ll skip around. If I’m really angry, I’ll use a red pen. I’ll have the colors match the tone of how I’m feeling.
SZA
God bless SZA. She’s just one of the best songwriters working. I’ve been in since “Ctrl.” I equate her to Elliott Smith in that everyone who loves Elliott Smith thinks they have a one-on-one relationship to his music. Everyone that loves SZA that I know is like, “SZA gets me.”
‘Paris, Texas’
In competition as my favorite film of all time. I know that’s kind of like a “film school bro” thing to say. But there is really nothing wrong with it. The neon-soaked, contemplative, character-driven movies — they are 100 percent indebted to it and yet no one has surpassed the sensitivity, complexity, the nuance and oddness of “Paris, Texas.”
James Baldwin
Everyone should read “The Fire Next Time” — it should be required in schools. I had an era of just reading his books chronologically and then I was like, I need to stop because I think I’ll feel so heartbroken when I’m done with his work.
My Film Camera
Julien got me a Contax T2 for my birthday. Sometimes if I guest on people’s shows, I’ll take a picture of them and the crowd, because who else is getting them from that perspective? I took it to the Joni Mitchell show and I have a picture of her and Elton John singing together backstage.
