Brando

Lucy Dacus sings this one with a controlled, almost academic precision that makes the emotion feel more devastating, not less — the restraint is the whole point. The production is patient indie rock, guitar lines that coil slowly upward while the rhythm section holds steady underneath, the arrangement never quite tipping into release until you're already deep inside it. She uses Marlon Brando as a specific kind of shorthand: the magnetic, dangerous, achingly beautiful thing that you know is going to cost you something but you reach for anyway. The song is about the particular pull of someone who occupies an outsized space in your imagination — the way a certain person can become almost mythological to you before anything has even happened. Dacus has always written with this quality of careful observation, as if she's taking notes on her own feelings from a slight remove. It's from "Home Video" (2021), her richest album, which traded in the archaeology of formative experiences and the people who shaped them. This is a song for driving home after spending time with someone you want more from than they're offering, when the night is dark and you're reconstructing the evening beat by beat, looking for evidence of something.