Lucy Dacus has revealed that Taylor Swift texted her ahead of the release of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, asking for approval to mention her name in the lyrics.
The album arrived last April, and got fans talking when one of the lyrics name-dropped a person called ‘Lucy’. Heard in the title track, Swift criticises her ex-partner’s “self-sabotaging” behaviour, and makes reference to him “coming undone”. She then goes on to recall how the lover in question once told “Lucy” that he would take his own life if Swift left him.
Many fans were convinced that the ex in question was The 1975’s Matty Healy, and that the ‘Lucy’ referenced was Lucy Dacus – a third of the Grammy-winning group boygenius and someone who has connections to both Swift and Healy.
Now, nearly a year since the album dropped, Dacus has confirmed that the reference was made about her, and said that Swift asked her for permission before she shared the record.
Dacus shared the update in a new interview with People Magazine, which went live yesterday (March 27). “I think it’s fair game to say yes. She actually texted me and asked for my approval,” she said when asked whether she was the ‘Lucy’ in question.
She then went on to recall what it was like to see the song, and the album as a whole, get so much momentum, saying: “This [was] the first Taylor record to come out since meeting her, and listening to a friend’s record feels so much different than a stranger’s record.”
“So I was like, ‘This is really weird. This voice that I’ve heard basically what feels like my whole waking life saying my name’,” she added. “It was definitely an experience. I sat down and I was like, ‘Huh. Wow.’ But I think that that record of hers is super open-hearted, and I don’t know how many people at her level, if anyone is at her level, are writing from the heart that openly.”
NME gave the album a three-star review, which read: “‘The Tortured Poets Department’ ends up chasing its own tail with frenzied attempts to respond to critics despite Swift’s current stature.”
“Swift seems to be in tireless pursuit for superstardom, yet the negative public opinion it can come with irks her, and it’s a tired theme now plaguing her discography and leaving little room for the poignant lyrical observations she excels at,” it added. “It’s why the pitfalls that mire her 11th studio album are all the more disappointing – she’s proven time and time again she can do better.
“To a Melbourne audience of her ‘Eras Tour’, Swift said that ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ came from a “need” to write. It’s just that maybe we didn’t need to hear it.”
As for Dacus, the comments about the record come as she has today (March 28) shared her fourth studio album ‘Forever Is A Feeling’. It was previewed by four singles: ‘Talk’, ‘Ankles’, ‘Limerence’ and ‘Best Guess’.
It was given a four-star review, and described by NME as being an album that sees her “switch spiky indie for grand chamber-pop and deliciously details the rush of a new romance”.
“Though it exudes plenty of joy along the way, ‘Forever Is A Feeling’ doesn’t shy away from the more daunting aspects of being totally obsessed with somebody; ‘This is bliss, this is hell,’ Dacus sings on the title track. ‘Forever is a feeling, and I know it well,’” it read. “Though longing and mortality have long been recurring themes in Dacus’ music, the stakes feel even higher – and even more gripping – when there’s so much to lose.”