Songfacts®:

• "Historians" is the title track of Lucy Dacus' second album. She explained to HMV.com why she named the record after this song:
  
  "My first idea for a title was Good Grief, but then I found out about the Lucius album of the same name. Penultimatum was another option. If the final ultimatum is death, the penultimate ultimatum is life, and the album is largely about facing life and deciding how to live. But it's a bit annoying and I could tell I wouldn't want to stand up for the sub-par wordplay.
  
  I also thought of Big Bright Shadow, but it sounded a little emo. Historian felt right immediately because I wanted to acknowledge my place in the record. The last song is 'Historians,' and I wanted to show that I am one of the two characters in that song."
• Lucy Dacus told Uncut the song's meaning, explaining it "laments the fact that no matter how many photos we take of other people or however much journaling we do, the real person will go away. That makes me sad, but it keeps me grateful for my time with them."
• If Dacus is one of two characters in the song, then who is the other? "It's anybody that I am attached to," she told The Fader in 2018. "Anybody that I've shared life with, anybody that I've tried to capture through pictures and writing - and anyone who does that of me, too. People have their histories of who I am, in their own journals that I'll never read."
• Dacus' first album, No Burden, was recorded in just one day at a Nashville studio with a band that had little time to learn the songs, but it was good enough to gain the attention of record labels that were eager to sign the up-and-coming indie rocker. She signed with Matador Records and went back to Nashville to record Historian with a slightly more generous timeframe: one week. It gave her just enough leeway to brainstorm with her longtime friends and collaborators, Jacob Blizard and Collin Pastore, without affording time for overthinking.
  
  "I think people's first instincts are usually right," she reasoned in a 2018 interview with 13th Floor. "It's a part of who you are. Your first thought is really indicative of your taste, so I like to stay as true as I can to my first impulses."
• Dacus is an avid journal-keeper with years of diaries dating back to her childhood. One of her earliest entries found little Lucy complaining about her babysitter chatting the night away on the phone with her boyfriend.
• In a 2021 Reddit AMA, Dacus explained the significance of the album cover: "It's a little slumpy soul floating over a mountain range, if the bubble gum pops, they'll fall and perish, so it's sorta about how you have to cling to lighthearted and sweet things in order not to die."