if the devil’s in the details,
then god is in the gap in your teeth
- Lucy Dacus, “For Keeps”
ope. can’t see my teeth — but trust me; they’re imperfect.
I am a recovering perfectionist. I liked school. I took pride in studying and writing good papers with plenty of time to edit and revise before the due date. I wanted to do all of the assigned reading, consult the rubrics, and ensure that I’d measure up to whoever’s job it was to tell me I did things “right.”
It served me. And it still serves me. But, as you’re well aware, it has a flip side. I can also get immobilized in the grey areas, stifle my own creativity, and put more on my plate in order to prove my own worth to myself while losing track of what I find relaxing or — god forbid — fun.
With each one of our three albums, I’ve gotten better at managing this part of myself. Because making things is the most fun I can have — it’s just that it also demands a lot of dedication, organizational, and follow through to make art that can be a salve for my loneliness and others’.
Now, working on my “Brief Interviews on Heartbreak” project, addressing my relationship to imperfection is taking center stage.
I’m releasing monthly singles inspired by interviews with strangers on some of the biggest moments of grief. I’m writing, recording, and mixing them at home — a radically different approach than how we’ve made our past albums in studios with dozens of musician and engineer friends. For the monthly singles, it’s just little ol’ me. And I feel like I am in high school again, muddling through my first recording using GarageBand on an iPod Touch.
On the other hand, summer is in full swing and I am trying my best (and failing) to keep up with the garden out back when I get home from my job working with all the kids who hang out at my local library. The poison ivy that I had been dutifully spraying with vinegar, salt, and soap has encroached into the yard, even claiming a butternut squash as it’s own — daring me to try to retrieve it. The strawberries kept up for a while, then were stifled by the weeds after being eaten by the birds. The groundhog in the backyard is fat and happy — and profoundly unbothered whenever he sees me.
But, even as Mother Nature laughs at my attempts to make her grow on my terms — the flowers still bloom. Amidst the weeds, I have a heroic squash harvest. Shallots and garlic aplenty. The tomatoes are coming in, despite some black spots at the bottom that require more pruning than I can manage. And the zinnias are in full force, begging me to adorn the home with them in empty jars with faded labels. I am not a gardener, but I am gardening.
The same thing is happening with these songs that I am releasing monthly. I am not a recording engineer, but I am engineering. I am not a mixer, but I am mixing. But, just as I am not a terribly good gardener, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have ears, hands, and the will to try. And now more than ever, I am more willing to be imperfect.
See, the dirty little secret the whole time is that I wasn’t ever making anything that was perfect. I’ve listened to our past albums, and some of the decisions were baffling, but beautiful. Some weird beauty came out of that wildness, way back when, much like weird beauty is coming out of this project now — a no matter how wild and unkempt the garden looks like today, there is a beautiful cup of zinnias sitting on the coffee table as I write this.
I’m looking forward to sharing the first EP with you on 8/22 — but you can listen to three of the songs right now at your favorite streamer (or this Spotify playlist). You can join us at the release show at Rambling House with Will Orchard and Kid Bigfoot if you’d like.
But no matter what you do, I’ll do my best to be unbothered and bask in this Lucy Dacus song. Perfection is impossible, but I will still try to make beautiful, ambitious things. I’ll aim to treat myself a bit more kindly and be a bit less stressed.
you are doing the lord’s work
every time you smile at me- Lucy Dacus, “For Keeps”