With a ukulele in her hands and a sunny spirit in her heart, singer-songwriter and recent UC Berkeley graduate Lucy Eaton is setting her sights on a bright future. Whether it be recording and producing music or performing in coffee shops and on college campuses, Eaton is eager for more. After the recent release of her debut single, “Rotten Love,” Eaton is reflecting on where she came from and where she’s going.

The initial purchase of a $5 ukulele in Indonesia kick-started Eaton’s musical journey. She found herself captivated by the instrument’s light, dainty sound after playing it all day and night. Upon transferring to UC Berkeley in 2017, she met a community of like-minded musicians at Songwriting at Berkeley, a student-run club that shared her passions and helped elevate her aspirations further. 

“After joining the club, that’s what got me to start playing live and thinking about writing a group of my own work,” Eaton said in an interview with The Daily Californian. “And even then, I was more focused on writing music for other people, but the more I played live with the club, the more I got attached to performing my own music.”

Songwriting at Berkeley not only pushed Eaton to pursue music, but it also allowed her to find unconditional support and genuine friendships. As Eaton planned busking events and open mics, she discovered lifelong connections along the way, one of which being Marcus Lee: fellow musician, collaborator and Eaton’s current music producer all rolled into one. Songwriting at Berkeley’s environment was nothing but encouraging, and after becoming vice president in her last year, she was committed to doing the same for incoming club members.

“Creating an inclusive environment was super powerful for me,” Eaton said. “That was really important for me as vice president: to make sure that it was inclusive for other people, because I think that can do so much — not even in just the music space, but just for me as a person, becoming friends with people who are really open to whatever I wanted to be, was so nice.”

Eaton describes her sound as folk pop, as her first released track alludes to the genre’s lovely core elements of swaying melodies and dreamy vocals. Despite this reliable foundation Eaton has grounded, her ultimate goal is to eventually push her musical boundaries further and explore a more pop-influenced style. 

“I’m trying to lean more into the pop space as I go,” Eaton said. “But I am initially a folk musician. I do mostly just play ukulele live, but generally just want to make music that people get excited about. I think that can mean being really, really relatable or maybe bringing up an idea that someone hasn’t heard before.”

To push her musical frontier also means to push her creativity. Songwriting isn’t always smooth — in fact, it’s messy. Adjusting harmonies, scratching out bad ideas and sifting through instrumental layers just graze the surface of the long-winded music-making process. These challenges are rewarded, however, with breakthroughs and sparks of motivation that remind Eaton why she enjoys all the ups and downs of creating her own unique sound.

“Sometimes you drop sounds in or instruments in that sound really goofy by themselves or you’re like, ‘This is a terrible idea,’ but you put it in anyway,” Eaton described. “And then when it sounds great altogether, it’s so thrilling. You’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I just accidentally made something that sounds cool.’ I love that because it’s so surprising and it’s such a cool experience. (It) doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does, you’re like, ‘OK, this is giving me enough energy to keep making this song and keep trying out difficult things.’ ”

Eaton looks forward to adding more musically adventurous projects to her discography. But nevertheless, her trusty ukulele stays loyal as a starting point. From there, she hopes to branch out with innovative combinations to diversify her songs.

“My next single is called ‘He’s Not Over’ — that will hopefully be out by really, really early 2021,” Eaton said. “We’re hoping to go more into the bedroom pop type of sound. The ukulele will still be there because she’s my baby. There’s going to be a lot more synth sounds, so it’ll be less of an acoustic song. But it is where I was always hoping to go since that’s the type of music that I really love, that really hits home for me.”

Through writer’s blocks to the delights of accomplishing a new verse, Eaton finds never-ending joy in music and remains optimistic on whatever may come in her direction.