Lucy Dacus Announces ‘Home Video,’ Hear the Lead Single ‘Hot and Heavy’

A month after releasing her crushing ballad “Thumbs,” Lucy Dacus has announced the new album Home Video, out June 25th via Matador.

The singer-songwriter accompanied the release with “Hot and Heavy,” the opening track to the record. “Being back here makes me hot in the face/Hot blood in my pulsing veins,” she sings. “Heavy memories weighing on my brain/Hot and heavy in the basement of your parent’s place.”

“I thought I was writing ‘Hot and Heavy’ about an old friend, but I realized along the way that it was just about me outgrowing past versions of myself,” Dacus said in a statement. “So much of life is submitting to change and saying goodbye even if you don’t want to. Now whenever I go to places that used to be significant to me, it feels like trespassing the past. I know that the teen version of me wouldn’t approve of me now, and that’s embarrassing and a little bit heartbreaking, even if I know intellectually that I like my life and who I am.”

Dacus paired the single with a self-directed video where she arrives at Byrd Theatre in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia, holding a camcorder. At the concession stand, she trades it in for popcorn and takes a seat to watch her own memories on screen.

“I knew I wanted to include some of the home video footage that my dad took of me while I was growing up,” she said. “I wanted to visualize the moment when you first reflect on your childhood, which I think can also be the moment that childhood is over. For me, I feel like there was a hard switch when I started releasing music, when my identity went from being a personal project to something publicly observed and reflected. I asked my family (shoutout to my grandma) and some of my closest friends to be extras because they’re the people that knew me before that switch. I may have dropped out of film school, but I still love making movies and had a really fun time directing this one.”

Home Video follows 2018’s Historian. In 2019, she released a holiday-themed EP that contained covers of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight,” and more.

She recently contributed vocals to the solo albums of her Boygenius bandmates — Julien Baker’s Little Oblivions and Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher — and they return the favor on Home Video with guest appearances. The album was recorded at Trace Horse Studio in Nashville.

Dacus also announced a tour in support of Home Video, which kicks off in Richmond on September 10th supporting the National with Baker. Bachelor, Bartees Strange, and Shamir have been tapped to open select shows. The trek wraps in Brooklyn in October; tickets go on sale on Friday.