Lucy Dacus

Usually, I'll just be walking from my house to somewhere else, and melodies and words will start coming up, and I'll have to run home to write it all down.

From the very beginning, I had a lot of female role models in music. I would go to shows, and there were always women fronting bands and playing guitar or backing up and playing drums or bass in a band. That probably contributed to my belief in myself to go out and perform for people.

The media, and how we're taught to read it, has a huge impact on who we become as people.

I will say it is funny that writing a song about not wanting to entertain people is what got me a career in entertainment.

I never considered a career in music because it was too unattainable. I just didn't believe it was possible.

Film is like sculpture, writing, acting, technical arts, all sorts of arts. And that's why I wanted to do it for so long, because it would include so many places for attention.

Writing has never been an intentional endeavor to me. I know a lot of people have experiences and then sit down and try to sort them out through song, but whenever I sit down to write, it comes out hackneyed or overly saccharine.

Negativity, in general, is one of the things that holds people back, and you have to see what's holding you back to get away from it.

Whenever I'm trying to understand people that I don't understand, or things in people or even in myself, I'll say, 'When did this negativity get here?' I try to think back to how I was raised to deal with things, and then consider how the person that I'm dealing with grew up.

My dad plays guitar in the church band, so it's like music as a service. He plays at old-people homes, so that's like music as a gift.

I was always writing. I've always been attracted to words and stories, communication.

Questions don't easily die within me until they're answered, and so being able to write a song and put words to complex feelings is part of my process of understanding and letting go of things.