Brace yourselves, because Mr. KanHey is here to interrupt your regularly scheduled emotional programming with a sonic jolt from the high priestess of vulnerability herself—Lucy Dacus. And let me tell you, the girl didn’t just drop new music, she tossed a molotov cocktail through the glasshouse of indie expectations and walked away while quietly humming. Yes, I’m talking about her double single release: “Bus Back to Richmond” and “More Than Friends.” Two sides. One coin. And every lyric is a dagger dipped in molasses.
Let’s start with “Bus Back to Richmond,” shall we? This track is a bruised-lipped love letter to time lost and hometown haunts that never quite let go of your ankles. It doesn’t just simmer—it unpacks grief and longing like you’re on that Greyhound to purgatory, not Virginia. Dacus isn’t painting in brushstrokes anymore. She’s using blood, Polaroids, and overexposed memories. It’s 4 minutes of emotional exorcism. Subtle. Haunting. Zero apologies.
Then there’s “More Than Friends.” Whew. Now this… this is the under-the-table glance, the late-night couch confession, the internal monologue that should’ve stayed locked up but spilled over instead. It’s soft, sure, but don’t confuse softness with weakness. This track is a velvet-gloved punch in the gut to every queer-coded, friendship-laced, almost-kiss storyline pop culture snubbed for too long. “More Than Friends” is the kind of song that unzips your spine and asks, “Where does it hurt?”
Lucy Dacus is not just an artist. She’s a surgeon of sentiment with a scalpel made of stardust. And with this dual dispatch, she gives us both the ache of nostalgia and the hunger of potential love—all delicately wrapped in her signature slacker-soul-meets-literary-witchcraft packaging.
Let’s get one thing straight—no one drops a double single in 2024 unless they’ve got something to say and the audacity to say it twice. This isn’t music for your curated background playlist while you overanalyze your ex’s Instagram story. This is the front-row-seat, floodlight-on-your-insecurities kind of music. Dacus isn’t chasing streams. She’s bottling truth and watching the world stagger under its weight.
Of course, the world last heard from Lucy in March with “Forever Is a Feeling,” a song that bathed us in the kind of timeless emotion most pop artists today wouldn’t recognize if it tattooed itself on their forearms. But if that was the smoke, “Bus Back” and “More Than Friends” are the fire—and oh honey, it’s a controlled burn made to light up the darkest corners of your emotional attic.
Pop culture, listen closely. Lucy Dacus just added two more chapters to her beautiful, aching gospel of introspection. And in true Dacus form, she did it without fanfare—just raw truth rendered through reverb and restraint.
So, for all the cis-templated pop purists still drooling over their own reflections—Dare to be different or fade into oblivion. Lucy just made two songs that feel like secret crushes and long-distance regrets breathing down your neck. The question is—are you brave enough to listen closely?
Until next heartbreak drops in stereo,
– Mr. KanHey
