Lucy Dacus – “VBS” – Home Video

Lucy Dacus – “VBS”

How many of you remember summers spent at VBS? (Vacation Bible School). I remember so well. Sometimes my brother and I would go to three or even four different VBSs. I always won the Bible verse challenge, and I loved making the plaster Jesus busts (I used my to place garter belts on. Anyway, this beautiful song brings back so many memories. You would go to VBS, be spiritually aroused, then realizing you were gay and had no place in that world.

While you’re going to sleep your mind keeps you awake
And it makes your heart beat fast and loud
There’s nothing you can do but the only thing you found
Playing Slayer at full volume helps to block it out

The poetry was so bad
It took a lot to not laugh
You said that I showed you the light
But all it did in the end
Was make the dark feel darker than before
Dark feel darker than before
Dark feel darker than before

Lucy knows exactly what all of us ‘non-perfect’ people went through at VBS.  This song brings back memories, good and bad.  I also met my first girl friend, Theresa, at VBS,

Let’s talk music.  Dacus’ voice is at its best in this song.  She has that mix of the personal and the detached that only Dacus can achieve.  And the music just carries you along.  When she mentions Slayer, and the music pounds harder than a metal song, my heart skipped a beat.  Only Dacus (well, maybe Angel Olsen or the great Janis Ian) can actually be so revealing in her singing while still sounding like she outside looking in on her life.  I believe this makes Dacus so easy to relate to.  If she were too emotional, you’d be turned off; too detached, you wouldn’t be engaged.  I am waiting impatiently for Home Video to be released.