Lucy Dacus might be the only indie rock star who can make unbroken eye contact during a live show feel like a confessional booth and a staring contest at the same time.
"I think it has embarrassed some people," she admits with a small laugh, recalling moments on tour where her lyrical intimacy blurred into actual, visual intimacy. “I’ll look at someone and then I’ll notice that they noticed, and I’ll be like, 'Yeah I am looking at you… you’re looking at me—why can’t I look at you back?'” The irony isn’t lost on her that the crowd might come prepared for heartbreak but not for direct confrontation with it.
That tension—between invitation and boundary—is at the heart of Forever is a Feeling, her newest solo album and arguably her best, even if Dacus diplomatically insists, “They’re all my best.” The record drips in melancholy but doesn’t wallow; instead, it floats. Sometimes literally, like on the cover art, where Dacus appears mid-ascent, celestial and tired. "There’s kind of an angel thing happening," she says, acknowledging the religious iconography she gravitates toward. “I grew up in church—not the kind we played—but still, those places feel reverent whether or not you’re into God.”
She kicked off the album cycle playing in churches and museums, spaces that forced both her and her audience to be still, quiet, attentive. “It felt like 10 years ago when I was doing open mics,” she says, comparing the intimacy of those shows to her earliest performances. “Everybody’s just listening. It’s kind of scary, but I’d do it again.”
The new record is stacked with familiar collaborators: Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Madison Cunningham, and Bartees Strange among them—essentially WFPK’s current rotation in one studio. Dacus doesn’t hide her admiration. “These are all musicians that I love. A bunch of absolute heaters in the group,” she says, beaming.
Still, Forever is a Feeling is very much her own. She describes the writing process as something closer to live therapy. “More than any other record, I was writing as I was feeling things to figure out what I felt.” Case in point: “Limerence,” a heartbreaker built on dreamy violins and romantic rot. “I think I have to tell someone I’m not in love anymore,” she says of how she felt after writing it.
Elsewhere, the album touches on time—lost time, measured time, doomed time. A live cover of Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” on tour echoed her own track “Lost Time.” “Once you’re finally willing to admit you love someone, you look back at all the time you were afraid to say it and go, ‘Oh my God, time is limited,’” she says. “Now I need to make up for it by fully embracing it.”
But don't expect the silver lining to come in the form of optimism. “Nothing lasts forever, but at least let’s see how far we get,” she sings. It’s a line that cuts like a whisper in a quiet cathedral. “That could be optimistic or pessimistic,” she agrees. Or maybe just real.
The album might not be a romcom, but it is a romance. One with breakups, mortality, and the grimace that comes with knowing “forever” is just a feeling—and like all feelings, subject to change. “You’re going to lose people either way,” she shrugs. “Not to be like that, but I am like that.”
Dacus doesn’t want to write anything she can’t live with. “I try not to ever put out a song I’d regret. If I think, ‘This is petty,’ or, ‘I won’t think this in a week,’ I try to put it away. I’m going to have to sing them.”
With Forever is a Feeling, she’s written something worth singing forever—even if forever doesn’t last.
Watch the full interview above and then check out the video below.
