Lucy Dacus has already released a few songs from her forthcoming album, Home Video. They’ve all been strong examples of her impeccable songwriting and expressive performance style. Clearly, though, “Brando” is the one I was waiting for.

Drawing on a high school–era relationship, Dacus recounts the feelings of being the spare part to a person who nurtures their pop culture obsessions, mostly through the avid consumption and explication of old movies. I might feel a little better about myself if I didn’t relate more to the blithely self-absorbed target of the lyrics’ beautifully forlorn venom. Even so, there’s no way I can resist a song that starts with the line “You told me to skip school to go with you to the movies.” And, hey, I also traveled the rutted road of self-actualization that allows me to understand the poignancy in the repeated chorus lyric “You never knew me like you thought you did, like you thought you did.” Maybe I’m both figures in Dacus’s song. Hell, maybe we all are.

Home Video is scheduled for release on June 25, 2021.