9 July 2026 – Lucy Dacus Turns 'Planting Tomatoes' Into A Hometown Film Moment

<a href="/tags/lucy-dacus">Lucy Dacus</a> has given 'Planting Tomatoes' a full visual life, premiering the music video in New York before opening the evening into a broader artistic event.

The song first appeared on limited-edition vinyl earlier this year before reaching streaming platforms, and the video now turns it into something richer: a hometown memory piece rooted in Richmond, Virginia, family, childhood, motion and the particular kind of joy that can sit beside melancholy without either one ruining the other.

That has long been one of Dacus' quiet superpowers. She can write about tenderness without making it flimsy, and she can place sadness inside an ordinary scene until the ordinary scene starts glowing like it knows a secret.

The video reportedly features friends, family, children, fast-moving edits, family gatherings and Richmond-specific locations, with a cemetery setting adding a darker undertone. On paper, that combination could sound like emotional soup. In practice, it makes perfect sense for a song that seems to understand how memory actually works: not as a clean timeline, but as scattered images. Kids dancing. Someone smiling. A field. A grave. A parent doing something practical that becomes symbolic only years later.

The result is less a standard promotional video and more a small family archive allowed to breathe in public.

Dacus also used the premiere setting to speak about directing her own work and maintaining control over what carries her name. That matters, because 'Planting Tomatoes' feels intensely personal without becoming closed off. It invites listeners into a world, but not as tourists. More like cousins who arrived late and brought snacks. The sweetness of the video does not erase the ache in the song; it gives the ache somewhere to sit. In a release week full of noise, spectacle and big album announcements, this stands out because it is modest in shape but quietly expansive in feeling. Sometimes planting tomatoes is just planting tomatoes. Sometimes it is an entire philosophy with soil under its nails.