\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Lucy Dacus<\/a> walked onstage at the Jan. 1 inauguration<\/a> of New York\u2019s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, music fans watching at home perked up with excitement. Dacus herself was feeling some big jitters. \u201cI was so nervous, because I can\u2019t think of a higher-stakes stage that I\u2019ve been on,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can mess up your own things, but it\u2019s really not cool to mess up somebody else\u2019s thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn fact, Dacus nailed that moment with a stirring rendition of \u201cBread and Roses,\u201d<\/a> an early-20th-century anthem of the labor and women\u2019s suffrage movements. A couple of days later, she called Rolling Stone<\/em> to take us behind the scenes of a historic day in New York.<\/p>\n \n\tHer City Hall appearance, which was not announced until the day of the inauguration, came together in just a few weeks, after the mayor-elect\u2019s office reached out in early December. They went back and forth on what to perform \u2014\u00a0\u201cIt would have felt weird to get up and sing one of my own songs,\u201d she says \u2014\u00a0before Mamdani\u2019s team suggested the storied protest song they went with.<\/p>\n \n\tDacus was familiar with \u201cBread and Roses\u201d because of a performance<\/a> she did with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, her boygenius<\/a> bandmates, back in 2021 at a San Francisco benefit for the nonprofit organization of the same name. \u201cIt\u2019s such a beautiful sentiment,\u201d she says. \u201cThe idea that you\u2019re not just fighting for your sustenance \u2014\u00a0you\u2019re fighting for your joy.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAlthough Dacus is based in Los Angeles, she\u2019s one of many people around the country who found something inspiring in Mamdani\u2019s promise to work toward a better life for all New Yorkers. In September, ahead of the mayoral election, she brought the popular progressive candidate out as a surprise guest during her set at the All Things Go<\/a> festival in Forest Hills, Queens, just a few months after he made a similar appearance at one of MJ Lenderman\u2019s shows in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n