Lucy Dacus Confirms This Taylor Swift Lyric Is About Her
“This voice that I’ve heard basically what feels like my whole waking life saying my name.”
One key member of Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department has officially been revealed. Fans had already suspected that Lucy Dacus was the “Lucy” Swift mentioned in the title track of her latest album, and now that almost a full year has passed, Dacus is confirming the speculation. The Boygenius singer said the “Tortured Poets Department” bridge does indeed shout her out, and it was a “weird” and “crazy” thing for her to hear the first time.
Like many songs on The Tortured Poets Department, the title track is speculated to be about Swift’s brief relationship with Matty Healy following her split from longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn in 2023. In the bridge, Swift sings about how she and her new partner have made similarly dramatic proclamations about their love to close friends:
Sometimes, I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me / But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen / Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be / ’Cause we’re crazy
Of course, it was a given that the “Jack” is Swift’s ever-present collaborator Jack Antonoff, and due to the theory that the song was written about Healy, fans assumed the “Lucy” had to be Healy’s friend (or, perhaps more accurately, former friend) Lucy Dacus. Dacus’ growing friendship with Swift as a surprise opener on her Eras Tour added fuel to this idea.
Dacus didn’t immediately address the lyric, but nearly a year after the song was released, she has confirmed she is name-dropped in Swift’s song.
“I think it’s fair game to say ‘yes,’” Dacus told People on March 27. “She actually texted me and asked for my approval.”
She recalled how strange it was to listen to the song for the first time, even if she did know the lyric was coming. “I was like, ‘This is really weird. This voice that I’ve heard basically what feels like my whole waking life saying my name,’” Dacus said.
The experience also hit different for Dacus due to how she had gotten to know Swift on a personal level ahead of Tortured Poets’ release. “I pushed play on the album just like, ‘Oh, this is so crazy,’” Dacus said. “This is 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 ... 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.”
