Lucy Dacus Says Taylor Swift Texted Her for Approval Over ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Name-Drop
"It was definitely an experience," the Boygenius star recalled of hearing the song for the first time.
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When Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department dropped in April last year, fans were all but certain that a person mentioned in the album’s title track was supposed to be Lucy Dacus. And nearly one year later, the Boygenius star has finally officially confirmed that she was, in fact, the “Lucy” in question, revealing that the pop superstar actually reached out to her before its release to make sure the name drop was all right.
In an interview with People published Thursday (March 27), Dacus responded candidly when asked point-blank whether she was the “Lucy” referenced in the bridge of “The Tortured Poets Department.” “I think it’s fair game to say yes,” the “Night Shift” singer said. “She actually texted me and asked for my approval.”
Widely believed to be about Swift’s short-lived romance with The 1975’s Matty Healy in 2023, “The Tortured Poets Department” finds the 14-time Grammy winner singing, “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.”
Fans determined at the time of the album’s release that the “Jack” referenced in the same stanza was likely Swift’s longtime producer, Jack Antonoff. Dacus and the Bleachers frontman aren’t the only stars who got shoutouts, though; a certain “See You Again” singer was also featured in the song’s lyrics, with the Eras Tour headliner proclaiming, “You smoked and ate seven bars of chocolate/ We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”
According to Dacus, the ordeal of listening to The Tortured Poets Department — which spent a collective 17 weeks atop the Billboard 200 — and hearing herself referenced in the lyrics was “so crazy.” “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,” the Virginia native told People. “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.'”
“It was definitely an experience,” she added. “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.”
The interview comes one day ahead of Dacus’ fourth studio album, Forever Is a Feeling. Earlier this month, the “Ankles” songwriter — who recently confirmed her long-rumored romance with Boygenius bandmate Julien Baker — spoke to Billboard about her most romantic LP yet.
“Once you focus on one thing and one person, it actually recontextualizes everything else,” she said. “You realize that every detail is its own universe.”
