You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe.

On September 5th, I'm going to be doing a special live Song Exploder event in Los Angeles with Boni Vair.

Justin Vernon and producer Jimmy Stack are going to be joining me on stage to tell the story behind one of the songs from the new Bonie Verre album, Sable Fable. So if you've ever wondered what a full, unedited Song Exploder conversation is like, this is your chance to be in the room. This is going to be a live event only. It's not going to be live streamed or repeated on any other night, so I hope you can make it. It's going to be at the beautiful Palace Theater in downtown L.A.

You can get tickets to this special Song Exploder Live event with Bonnie Vair at

songexploder.net slash live. Again, it's on Friday, September 5th in downtown L.A.

And you can get tickets at Song songexploder.net slash live.

Before this episode starts, I want to give a content warning. There's some explicit language,

but more crucially, the subject matter could be upsetting to some listeners. There's an explicit

description of a pretty violent act in the song, and there's some not explicit but implied behavior

of a parent mistreating their child. So please be mindful of that and take care before going ahead.

Lucy Dacis is a singer and songwriter from Richmond, Virginia. She put out her first album in

2016, and in 2018, she formed the band Boy Genius with Julian Baker and Phoebe Bridgers.

In June 2021, she released her third album, Home Video, which includes this song, Thumbs.

The first time I heard it, I knew I wanted to ask Lucy about how and why she made it.

So, after some COVID testing, we spoke in person here in Los Angeles. And she told me the story of how

Thumbs took months and months to get right. Your nails are digging into my knee. I don't know how you keep smiling.

I'm Lucy Dacus.

The day that I wrote Thumbs was in 2018,

but the event that the song is about happened like five years before.

I was 19 and had a friend who was crying because she had just been on the phone and she told me

that her dad was in town and she hadn't seen him for a really long time. And I knew that he was a bad dude.

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