Ethel Cain’s Gorgeous New Single: A Heart-Wrenching Story of Love and Loss

Ethel Cain has dropped. I repeat, Ethel Cain has dropped a new single.

Hayden Anhedönia, known professionally as Ethel Cain, has released music for the first time since her EP Perverts back in January, a fantastic, experimental drone music album that saw her exploring new sounds and themes. Her latest single “Nettles” sees her returning to form a bit as she prepares to release her second studio album Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You in August, which serves as both a follow-up and a prequel to her 2022 record Preacher’s Daughter.

If you want to delve into Preacher’s Daughter, my favorite album of 2022, you can see a full synopsis and analysis below:

“Nettles” opens softly and serenely, a full minute of gentle, lovely instrumentation before Hayden starts to sing, and her voice sounds so lush and gorgeous over all the beautiful strings. Halfway through the song, we get these lively, snappy drums over Hayden’s crooning, longing voice. It’s a stunning, atmospheric experience of just over eight minutes, immersing us back into the life and the psyche of the character of Ethel Cain.

The song has some folk, some country, and some blues influences all throughout it while still having that classic Ethel Cain slowcore and ambient vibe she is so revered for. Instrumentally, it’s actually a rather happy song compared to most of the tracks on Preacher’s Daughter, despite some of its rather heavy content matter and themes. It feels like a dreamscape of sorts, as Ethel openly shows the weight her love for Willoughby and the fantasy of loving him forever, and we know she does.

“Nettles” is absolutely gorgeous. It is so thick with passion and love. Listening to this song feels like rolling around in an open field with your lover, basking in them despite all the hardships and pain you know you will have to face when you finally stand up and walk back home. But there is such a freedom in love, a freedom that makes you forget all your worries for those short, sweet moments, and “Nettles” absolutely encompasses that for me. You can feel Ethel’s worry and longing and hope and love with every word sung.

Plot wise, and lore wise, there’s a lot of figurative and literal clues here. There’s also a ton of emotional baggage to unpack in this song, and I think I’ll save most of it for a full analysis when the album comes out in August so I can put everything in context.

But this song reaffirms what we already knew about Ethel Cain and Willoughby Tucker: they are very much in love with each other, and they are deeply unhappy about where they reside in their lives, surrounded by tragedy, reckoning with the broken parts of each other.

Several lines stuck out to me:

Made a fool of myself

Down on Tennessee Street

It wasn’t pretty like the movies

It was ugly like what they all did to me

And they did to me

What I wouldn’t do to anyone

Something I absolutely love about Hayden’s music is how vivid it can be, both visually and emotionally. Visualizing this first part without the full context, I immediately picture Ethel having a terrible breakdown, or experiencing some significant sort of brokenness or emotional crack for all to see, therefore “making a fool of” herself due to the horrible situation she’s in.

But what’s particularly fascinating is the latter half of these lines tying back to Ethel’s tragic fate in Preacher’s Daughter, where she ends up being brutally killed and eaten by a dangerous man. It makes me wonder if the entire EP will come from future (deceased) Ethel’s perspective as she reflects back on her life and her love, wishing for what once was.

Tell me all the time not to worry

Think of all the time I’ll have with you

When I won’t wake up on my own

Held close all the time

Knowing I’m half of you

A heart-wrenching chorus, and another tie back to Preacher’s Daughter—more specifically, to the track A House in Nebraska, where Ethel shows us how very codependent she is on Willoughby. Her love for him is so deep and true that it morphs into something unhealthy and becomes self-defining. She doesn’t know who she is without him or without his love.

This line about knowing she’s half of him is particularly heartbreaking, knowing that he eventually leaves her—perhaps for war, as this song suggests, or perhaps by dying—and never returns. We can picture a vivid half-death of Ethel when we reflect on this, knowing he was half of her very being through her eyes.

To love me is to suffer me

This is a line repeated throughout the song, and it’s a curious one indeed. It’s also the last line of the song, which imprints its significance. I’m not quite sure what to make of it yet.

There are fan theories that Ethel is the one who kills Willoughby, which are interesting, but they seem so incredibly out of character. We know how deeply she loves him and how much she relies on his love. That being said, unhealthy love can lead to unhealthy rationalization of certain decisions, and this idea of Willoughby “suffering” Ethel’s love through perhaps her wrath is worth contemplating. Perhaps a significant part of Willoughby dies, and Ethel feels she is forced to kill whatever is left.

Suffering and love are prevalent themes throughout this track. The song sees Ethel suffering with Willoughby at every turn, from when we see her with him at the start during a traumatic situation at the hospital, perhaps through an injury or a death of a loved one, to when she tells him “That picture on your wall you’re scared of looks just like you”, hinting at ways Willoughby is becoming like (presumably) his father in tragic ways.

Even through all the suffering they face, Ethel is right by his side. She feels it all with him. So this line ringing out can also come across as Ethel almost begging him to, in turn, suffer her, to feel her pain by her side—to stay with her, to never leave, as she would never leave him.

Alas, we know he does indeed leave. We just don’t know why.

This song sounds like love, like a long, warm hug from your most special person. It is so full, thrumming with a vibrancy that is hard to even put into words. I absolutely love the country vibe it has, especially with whoever the hell is absolutely mastering the fiddle in the backdrop of the song. It’s beautiful, and I’m going to be listening to it over and over until the album comes out.

Ethel Cain, I’m ready.