5 lucy dacus songs to process religious trauma
overcoming self-hate, believing in self-worth, finding and defining true love, unlearning the things we are told to think about ourselves
“christine”
you're falling asleep on my shoulder
in the back of your boyfriend's car
we're coming home from a sermon
saying how bent and evil we are
from the start, “christine” echoes my experiences growing up as an evangelical. constantly i was reminded that i was inherently evil. my body was evil, my mind was evil, my thoughts and feelings were evil, and if it weren’t for jesus dying in my place, i would certainly burn in hell forever, not because god is cruel but because he is just.
throughout the song, the nature of the attraction between lucy and the friend falling asleep on her shoulder is undefined, though we know it to be a powerful one that complicates friendship. lucy sings to christine that she was trying to “imagine what you’re dreaming” in the car as she slept: there’s a restrained intimacy here i think. there’s some part of christine’s mind that is gated off not only to lucy but to christine herself, and it’s likely to remain so, despite lucy’s longing to truly know her friend: these are girls being lectured to believe they are evil, and that belief places an inhibition on our comfort with sharing feelings.
that’s why christine is never fully honest with lucy about her boyfriend. to be honest, at least i think it is implied, would be to explore those parts of her which are evil. and if she does this, there will be consequences.
he can be nice sometimes
other nights, you admit he's not what you had in mind
all in all, nobody's perfect
there may be better, but you don't feel worth it
that's where we disagree
how can she feel like she’s worth it when she’s growing up in an environment that teaches her she is “bent” and “evil”? of course she will refuse to embrace herself. of course she will accept an unsatisfying relationship. and of course she will obscure her doubts when speaking with her friend. she is afraid to let out her true self: her true self threatens her salvation. that fear affects us in so many ways: romance, friendship, community, art. that wound from fundamentalist christianity strikes deep inside us. even after we stop believing, the self-hatred can linger after a whole childhood of sermons, teachings, threats, and prayers instructing us in our own wickedness.
the song ends with a reminder implying what happens if we force ourselves to live our lives according to biblical dictates rather than the truth inside our own hearts. it’s at the wedding alter when we see where giving god control leads lucy’s friend.
but if you get married, i'd object
throw my shoe at the altar and lose your respect
i'd rather lose my dignity
than lose you to somebody who won't make you happy
lucy wants her friend to be happy. for an evangelical, “happiness” is a moot point.
maybe lucy’s friend would be happier with the one she truly loved, but that would be a temporary happiness. as my sunday school teachers reminded me, temporary happiness on earth is not worth burning forever in hell.
lucy dacus in 2019 (source)
“vbs”
in the summer of '07 i was sure i'd go to heaven
but i was hedging my bets at vbs
the preacher in a t-shirt told me i could be a leader
taught me how to build a fire and to spread the wordin the evening everybody went to worship and weep
hands above our heads, reaching for god
back in the cabin, snorting nutmeg in your bunk bed
you were waiting for a revelation of your own
for two consecutive summers at the end of elementary school my parents sent me for a week away at a bible camp in northern michigan. my behavior in school and at home was an issue for them. i think they hoped bible camp would teach me how and why to behave better: when i returned my mom told me that she noticed a real change.
at camp we would sit around the fire while counselors told us to think about everyone we knew who wasn’t a christian and remind ourselves that they were going to burn in hell. we were asked to think: am i truly saved? maybe we had said the words before: “jesus, be my lord and savior, forgive me, come into my heart,” but had we really meant those words? we were instructed to analyze this question.
sometimes i would ask my mom after her warnings of hell: “am i saved?” and she would tell me: “only god can know what’s in your heart.”
so i always wondered: “did i really mean it when i pledged myself to the lord?”
at the fire, there was always an opportunity to re-commit yourself to christ. i re-committed myself both summers, just like i often did at church. every time i did this, i felt a sense of relief: finally i am truly saved! within weeks the certainty was gone.
i love that line: “i was sure i’d go to heaven / but i was hedging my bets at vbs.” because as much as evangelicals like to boast about the gospel’s simplicity, the gospel according to them is not simple at all. if we believe we are evil, and if salvation is a private matter between our own evil hearts and the almighty god, then how can we ever be certain we really meant it when we asked jesus into our hearts? what if we were just going through the motions because we’re just so fucking evil?
we never know really. we can’t deny that we are evil. to deny that we are evil is to deny needing salvation: this is blasphemy. we must admit that we are evil and simultaneously believe that despite that evil, we really did meant it when we told god we loved him. and all the while our sunday school teachers, camp counselors, and parents are telling us, “there’s nothing we can do for you if you are not saved, and we cannot tell you whether or not you are.” we just have to tell ourselves that god is in control. everything is working out according to god’s plan. but is that a good thing?
your dad keeps his sleeves down through the summer for a reason
your mother wears her makeup extra thick for a reason
when i tell you you were born and you are here for a reason
you are not convinced the reason is a good one
i used to wonder about god’s plan for me. yes, god had good plans for people, but if god was in control, then god also had a plan for hitler, and now hitler was burning in hell. sometimes i wondered, could hitler have stopped himself, or would god have intervened to ensure the progression of his vision for human history? sometimes i asked my mom, “mom, what if the antichrist decides he doesn’t want to be the antichrist?” and my mom said, “he can’t decide that: the antichrist serves god’s plan.” on some ultimate level, even the devil is simply acting out god’s agenda. everything is building up to the final confrontation, a great battle on the field of armaggedon where god claims he will defeat all his enemies once and for all.
we are told god loves us all, but then we are told that the antichrist can’t be saved because that would undermine his role in the apocalypse, which is god’s plan. god’s plan requires a hell to demonstrate his “justice” and a heaven to radiate out his “mercy.” if hell is required, then so are human souls to burn there. and from the beginning god designed all this to be agonizing for us: he gave us bodies with sexual desires for which he promises eternal damnation; he began his career as a deity with long lists of tediously specific and arbitrary laws for the hebrews to follow on pain of death; he sent the devil to torment a loyal servant, job, just so he could show the devil that job would stay loyal to him after losing his family and property.
the evangelical god leaves us with no cause to believe “the reason [for our lives] is a good one.” we see how he orchestrates bizarre situations to test and torment people. the more i learned about god, and the more i learned how evil he had made me, the more convinced i was that i had been put on the earth to achieve something terrible.
as early as 10 years old, i used to sit and wonder: am i the antichrist? i imagined god throwing me down into the deep dark abyss described in revelation. i would fall and fall and fall forever. thinking about it, i would sit there, paralyzed with utter terror. people wondered, “why doesn’t this kid do his homework?” and i wondered, “don’t these people realize if they don’t do something they’re all going to burn in hell?”
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
it was always so hard to meet people who had escaped, who had rejected it all, when i was still so fucking terrified of burning forever in the lake of fire. “remember,” i was told, “if your name isn’t in the book of life, you will burn in the lake of fire forever.”
“but how can i know that my name is in the book of life?”
“that’s between you and god.”
what if i spent my whole life trying to please god, and then every time i’d ever pledged myself to jesus, i hadn’t really meant it? when i met people who lived as if god didn’t exist, i wanted their lives so badly. but my desire only convinced me of how evil i was.
the light they showed me made the dark feel darker than before.
“nonbeliever”
you threw your books into the river
told your mom that you're a non-believer
she says she wasn't surprised but that doesn't make it okyou say nobody loves a city
nobody loves what can't love 'em back
one-way ticket in your pocket
what happened to the charm of a small town?
there’s a lot happening in this song, but i especially love the opening. the declaration of non-belief: i remember that exhilarating moment when you look your parents in the face and tell them, “hey guess what? i’m an atheist now!” when i made this declaration at 19, there were people literally sobbing they were so mortified. (i’m not an atheist anymore though. i like to think of myself as more of a witch. i think phoebe bridgers has called herself a “hedge witch” in an interview and i’m obsessed with that).
after the declaration of non-belief, there’s an urge to break through boundaries in other ways, too: there’s one-way tickets, there’s quests to find something to fill the void left by our crumbled certainty. or at least that’s how i connect with this song (listen to the whole thing: my take is far from doing this thing justice).
if you find what you're looking for
be sure to send a new address
and if you find what you're looking for
write a letter and tell us what it is, and tell us what it iseverybody else, everybody else looks like they've figured it out
everybody else, everybody else looks like they've figured it out
everybody else, everybody else looks like they've figured it out
everybody else, everybody else looks like they've figured it out
i love the repetition at the end. maybe because i know what it’s like to look like i have it figured out but not actually have anything figured out at all. maybe that’s a good description of what being an atheist was like for me.
“satanist”
will you be a nihilist with me?
if nothin' matters, man, that's a relief
solomon had a point when he wrote ecclesiastes
if nothing can be known, then stupidity is holy
if the void becomes a bore, we'll treat ourselves to some self-belief
okay, so this song (and the next) are boygenius songs, but this is lucy singing. i think “satanist” really captures that sense you have when you finally achieve the intoxicating joy of rebellion. you’re definitely not a christian anymore: you’re not sure what you are, but you easily evolve from anarchist to satanist to nihilist and back, and all of it is fun, and always you’re a bit of a poser. phoebe in the same song:
will you be an anarchist with me?
sleep in cars and kill the bourgeoisie
at least until you find out what a fake i am
spray paint my initials on an atm
i burn my cash and smash my old tv
if i’m connecting phoebe’s words about being fake to the theme of this post, i’m feeling like: there’s such an urge to rebel against the trauma of our christian upbringings that rather than embracing our true authentic selves upon becoming free, we slip into performative behavior.
i think there’s a long period between the end of belief itself and the beginning of our ability to become truly authentic. fundamentalist chrisitianity has taught us so many awful things about ourselves that we initially require coping mechanisms to suppress those feelings and that sadness: satanism, anarchism, and nihilism are a few options (though of course all three of these ideologies make some valid points).
“true blue”
but it feels good
to be known so well
i can't hide from you
like i hide from myselfi remember who i am
when i'm with you
your love is tough
your love is tried and true blue
“true blue,” also a boygenius song but sung by lucy, must be one of the most beautiful love songs in years. what “true blue” emphasizes is a concept of love that also comes up so often in clairo’s work: to be truly loved is to be truly known. to feel loved is to feel known, to be seen, and to not have to hold something back: to not perform.
this is a way of existing which is simply impossible under the watchful gaze of the evangelical god. he watches us in our bedrooms to see if we are doing anything sexual. he monitors our thoughts for signs of blasphemy. he makes us feel like we must stay within the church community to be safe, for anything in the world could be evil and contaminate us with sin: music, movies, books, ideas, discussions, people, the internet. a relationship with this god is to be seen, but to be hated: to be known, but to be told that you need him to save you; to be loved, but to be potentially sent to hell.
if this is how we are taught to think about the ultimate form of love — god’s love — then we are entering life set up with one of the worst possible models for handling love. how could we hope to find a healthy relationship?
i think achieving that sense of being truly known in love is among the most difficult challenges for a recovering evangelical. when we are taught to hate ourselves, we are also afraid to reveal ourselves. and when we are afraid to reveal ourselves, we cannot be seen. “true blue” is a revelation of what true love feels like: true love is when we can bare ourselves without fear, without performance, and still know that we are loved.
this is the kind of love christine was doomed not to have with her boyfriend. it’s the kind of love lucy wanted to give christine: to see her dreams and still love her, to see her fully and then to say with unquestioned confidence: i love you; you are worth it.
but we are left wondering what happened to christine. did she ever overcome the teachings of christianity: the sermons saying “how bent and evil we are”? did she learn to believe in her own value and goodness?
i like to hope things ended for christine the way lucy imagined them at their best, unpolluted by the man who did not deserve her. to come back to “christine”:
you always wanted to raise a baby by the lake
maybe they'll grow up and never make the same mistakes
knowing you, they'd be the first kid to never hurt another
lucy has such confidence in her friend’s goodness here, despite all they have been taught to believe about themselves. that is the spirit of “true blue.”
