“Night Shift” by Lucy Dacus

"Night Shift" opens Historian, Lucy Dacus's 2018 album, and it was the lead single too: a breakup song, and by her own account the only one she has ever written. It grew out of her relationship with her former bassist, which ended after the tour for her previous album, No Burden.

Putting it first was a deliberate choice. Dacus figured a breakup is something everyone understands, and the rest of Historian is about what happens after the ground gives way, rebuilding yourself once somebody you'd built your life around is gone. Critics loved it, and Andrew Marantz of The New Yorker hailed it as a cathartic breakup song that burns every bridge in sight.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.