In November 2025, singer-songwriter Lucia Zambetti (CAS ’26), whose stage name is simply Lucia, released her first extended play, “In Love & war.” I caught Lucia just in time to chat with her about the place of music in her life, her creative process and her studies’ influence on her music before she graduates this May.

Since she first began releasing music in 2019, Lucia has amassed over nine million streams across platforms. Her 15-song discography, consisting of 10 singles alongside her five-song EP, melds indie folk and rock sounds with poignant lyrics, often weaving together vivid stories and — fittingly, given she majors in philosophy — venturing into existential lines of questioning. 

Although each song on “In Love & war” was written as its own distinct single before being compiled into a project and released, Zambetti said the songs were tied together by their personal, philosophical reflection on various forms of passion and discord.

“The through line for all the songs in ‘In Love & war’ is how my brain is either always focused on love in any regard, or on some sort of war in any regard, whether it’s real or more metaphorical,” Zambetti told The Hoya. “I think that that’s a very human experience.”

The relatability of the sentiments Lucia expresses in “In Love & war” certainly speak to the humanness of such considerations. The EP’s opener, “The circus song,” uses an extended metaphor of a clown abandoning the narrator with her circus animals to convey themes of dependency and misplaced trust, while “No barracks, No men” explores attachment and idolatry in relationships with religious imagery swathed in beautiful, heartbreaking bittersweetness.

These philosophical ponderings not only pervade Lucia’s music but also her approach to music as a career. Zambetti said that she both questions the industry and pushes herself to create with intention and authenticity as a result of her philosophy degree and her constant contemplation of morality.

“It’s definitely caused me to question a lot of the things that I’ve learned about the music industry and promotion and social media right now, which has a lot of existential crisis-inducing feelings sometimes,” Zambetti said. “But it makes me feel like I’m thinking about what I’m doing and being intentional with my art and trying to figure out the best way I can be genuine about it, because that’s all that really matters to me at the end of the day.

For Zambetti, this intention fulfills what she sees as an artist’s duty; she said artists are forced to navigate the complex distinction between romanticization and good-faith conversation on current events, given the intrinsically political nature of music as an art.

“I think there’s a really thin line between not aestheticizing, but romanticizing ongoing strife for more of a material reason, and the opposite, which is provoking conversation and talking about something that is an experience,” Zambetti said. “So, I do wholeheartedly think that artists have a duty. I don’t think that there can really be a separation between art and solidarity. I think music is inherently political.”

For example, the titular song of Lucia’s EP contains certain lyrics that take on double meanings, both applying to the metaphorical war within the relationship she sings about, and that can be made more politically applicable, like an explicit condemnation of war. Zambetti has also used her music and platform to contribute to social change, participating in the September 2025 Labor Solidarity Concert planned by Georgetown Coalition for Workers’ Rights, as well as the upcoming Labor Solidarity May Day concert cosponsored by numerous Georgetown clubs and departments.

But music is not only about duty for Zambetti, who said that music has occupied a central place in her life given her family’s own musicality and the way it brings them together, though she did not always see it as such.

“For the longest time, I was like, I don’t want to make music,” Zambetti said. “I don’t want to be like my family. I wanted to make art, like studio art and paintings, and that stuff never really went anywhere, and I finally came to terms with how integral music has been in my life.” 

“In a lot of ways, it’s just been so grounding for my family and what brought us together, and the glue between a lot of my and my friends’ interactions,” Zambetti added. “So, there’s no life for me besides music.”

In some ways, Lucia also mediates understanding her life through music. The practice of songwriting is an introspective one, Zambetti said, with lyrics often arising from her subconscious, occasionally surprising her.

“It’s almost like journaling. For me, I have a really hard time journaling and being honest with myself in that way, and putting it into these words puts things more into perspective,” Zambetti said. “So I’ve definitely learned things about myself through writing music, and sometimes I’ve been shocked out of this and tried to make sense out of the lyrics that I just wrote.”

For Lucia, the songwriting process is tantamount to an intrusive urge that overcomes her in waves, sometimes leading to doubt that she will ever be struck with another bout of inspiration again.

“A lot of my songwriting process comes very sparsely, but naturally,” Zambetti said. “So if I’m writing a song, it’s like something will come to me, either through improvising on an instrument, and then the words will follow, or hearing something in my head and having to go do it.”

“Sometimes I get nervous that I’m never gonna write a song again, because I don’t feel that very often,” Zambetti added. “But then when it comes, I don’t know, it’s kind of like a rash or something where it’s all of a sudden there, and then you have to itch it, and then it’s gone — and then it comes back.”