You Were Once a Baby
And I think about it on your behalf all the time, particularly while I am commuting. I’ll see some guy in a suit, gripping a briefcase, sputtering loudly into a cellphone and think, “Yeah, you were fussy. I know that.”
You were once a baby and so was I. I don’t say this to appeal to any sort of empathy you should extend to others (like when people point out that Hitler was in fact once a baby… or even the ethics of going back in time to kill baby Hilter), rather and simply, it’s hilarious to me that everyone you see, stranger or familiar, once squiggled around, couldn’t speak, shit up the length of their back and then cried about it. I say this because it’s hard for me to believe it. It feels fake. Some of you don’t look like you were babies ever. John McEnroe was a BABY? Yeah, good one…
Something that heightens my awareness of this recurring thought, breezing in and out like Eloise and the Plaza’s revolving doors (btw, is your TikTok feed crawling with Eloise content these days… or is that just me? When will Harriet the Spy have a moment on TikTok?) – is Lucy Dacus’s Home Video. Particularly because for her current tour, she projects collected footage from her own childhood videos on stage ahead of her set.
A few weekends ago, I went with my friend Maddie to catch a show in Providence on the hottest day of a 5-day heatwave. I have seen Lucy Dacus live quite a few times, and it’s always a delight. She’s a gentle rockstar, a brilliant lyricist, and my favorite person to follow on Goodreads (we both loved Stay and Fight by Madeline ffitch… so what are you waiting for?).
Home Video is basically an audiobook, crafting musical stories inspired by many of Lucy’s most formative years – everything from attending Vacation Bible School to a homophobic palm reading. About “Triple Dog Dare” in particular she clarifies:
There’s no such thing as nonfiction. I felt empowered by finding out that I could just do that, like no one was making me tell the truth in that scenario. Songwriting doesn’t have to be reporting.
A genius! I feel lucky to be alive in a time when I can marinate inside her music.
Every time I see her live ushers in a wave of change – one of hers was the last concert I saw before COVID hit, and another, I left having met new people who have since left a mark on me (Hi Michael!). I’m not sure if this effect is Lucy-specific, but I’d like to believe it is. She’s witchy in that way.
Driving to Rhode Island, I briefly wondered what this particular Lucy Dacus concert might shift (or should I say night shift? No…) for me. Then that thought made me feel like Drake: emotional. I was excited to be there with Maddie, a sister to me in practically every way – there is something inherently special about going to a concert with someone you love for music you also love. It recontextualizes that love into a shared moment. And that is what I would like to remember since I unraveled into an ungrateful buzzkill near immediately.
It was dangerously hot in the venue. And filthy? Like, worse than the tunnels of Boston’s Downtown Crossing station.
Out of nowhere a wave of nausea hit me, and I just about lost my guts as the opener, Samia, sang about diet culture and body image. I sat there, in a poorly lit bathroom stall, contemplating my next move. I could have decided to expire there, let my spirit be sucked through those decrepit pipes like Casper the friendly ghost, or I could rally. I had a choice, or rather a willpower, to drown out the voices of the girls coming into the 2-stall bathroom wondering if someone (me) was “in there.” I splashed water on my face, chugged a bottle of water, told Maddie we were good to go, and so we were. We found our way to the summit of the universe in the unassigned balcony section, fell into hot, sticky, broken seats, and silently made a pact to not move again until the crowd rang free its final claps.
While the world burned and the heat rose and I continued contemplating if we were going to make it out of this show in one piece, Maddie and I talked about being kids and swapped photos of us, found in the deep recesses of camera rolls and Facebook albums, each dressed in cutesy, girlish outfits, which inspired this iPhone note:
As two grown dykes (affirmatively, flatteringly), sitting up where the air was thin and yet so heavy, seeing each other in tiny gingham dresses and baby blue overalls over frilly pink t-shirts with blunt across the forehead bangs was enough to lift our spirits. Gone were thoughts of death, that is, until moments after Lucy’s voice played over the crowd, reminding everyone of the importance of wearing a face mask.
Not ten seconds later did the fire alarms start to blare. I took the liberty of recording a short video, and now the brief trouble of uploading it unlisted on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Caution: flashing lights and a haunting alto chime.
We sat there, stunned, postverbal for half an hour. A mix of exasperated chuckles and confused murmurs. We waited patiently for any communication from venue staff regarding whether there was a fire or not and watched people frantically evacuate regardless. I typed “Lucy Dacus Providence” into Twitter (the news) for any sort of updates and found an endless stream of jokes, outfitted in overused meme templates (re: “we need an American Girl doll who…”) about the fire alarm.
Maddie and I, staring into the eye of the random stock photo slideshow (which mostly featured fish and temples), trusted our intuition enough to not move. Remember the silent pact? We chalked it up to the extreme heat, poor ventilation, and heavily-breathing bodies triggering the alarm. There’s a poem in there somewhere.
Eventually, after firefighters darted around the building, the alarm ceased, but the power went out. Lucy came on stage with an acoustic guitar and projected as best she could, asking everyone to remain quiet as she began to sing. It was a fever dream like no other.
At one point Maddie turned me and said that with all our bickering about the comedy of errors of the evening, we were embodying the 2 cantankerous muppets, Statler and Waldorf. You were once a baby, and I am always Statler and/or Waldorf.
It’s not that I cannot enjoy things, or be happy for people standing up to unrhythmically flail their limbs in a seated section of an indie concert – it’s just that in order to release the tension of a ridiculous situation, I have to be a condescending little commentator. According to the Statler and Waldorf Wikipedia page (this is an incredibly well-researched publication), it’s a mystery to them as to why they continue to return to their balcony seats night after night, knowing they will never be impressed. Waldorf says, "Why do we always come here?" To which Statler replies, "I guess we'll never know.” (big me and Maddie vibes — Leo/Libra solidarity) – which is very much my experience with going to concerts in general. Sometimes the risk outweighs the reward: the price a hater has to pay.
A memory I cherish deeply is one when my friend Gloria yelled the words “I hate you” in the direction of a man who kept stepping on us at the House of Blues, and over the noise, he heard her. Another, watching a straight couple break up during Lizzo’s opening set at a HAIM concert (the man had a Spongebob tattoo and the woman was pissed about something related to her sister). The list goes on and on. Despite my negativity, concerts are the breeding ground for the remarkable – whether it’s the musician on stage, bewitching you into a moment of transcending or witnessing your fellow man behave in a uniquely stupid way. There’s nothing else like it.
A few days after Lucy, I went to see a rescheduled Mitski tour stop and was fully anticipating disaster. Instead, I was surprised. The only memorably irksome moment was when a woman in front of me received a BeReal notification and went for it (but only used it to take selfies with her boyfriend?). You may be wondering… did I unrhythmically flail my limbs to “Townie” … you just had to be there…
What it all comes down to is that we are all terrified, defenseless, overgrown babies, stuck in crowds without a clue what to do when the alarms go off. We lose control of our arms and let our heads wobble around as music plays, and then we go home, feeling one way or another about the experience, and either make the choice to return or not. Could a baby do that?
Big love,
kaylasomething