Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain

2022’s Preacher’s Daughter by artist Ethel Cain has turned out to be one of my favorite albums of the past few years. In the spirit of celebrating great music, I wanted to dedicate some time to summarizing and briefly analyzing the record.

Let’s jump into it!

Please check out the artist/album if you haven’t—you won’t be sorry! ;)

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Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain

1. Family Tree (Intro)

This first track sets the tone for the project right off the bat. The immediate vibe of the song is dark and atmospheric with Gothic influences in its sound and lyricism. Hayden Anhedönia’s voice is beautifully and melodically mournful as she comes to us through the fictional character of Ethel Cain, who will be the focus of the album.

Ethel sings about the fate she has found herself stuck with, addressing that her family history has doomed her to fulfill a very unfortunate prophecy. We don’t know exactly what her fate is yet, but it’s described as unpleasant and rather gruesome, as she tells us she has been (metaphorically) left swinging from her neck from the family tree. Creepy.

Despite this album being chock full of bangers, this song is probably one of my absolute favorites. I love the vocals and the production on it so much, and I love how perfectly it sets up the story to come. Spooky, serene, and desolate, this song is a great introduction to the macabre world of Preacher’s Daughter, with Ethel Cain as our unreliable narrator and our only guide through it all. It also introduces the topic of generational trauma very well, the most prevalent theme throughout the album.

2. American Teenager

The next song on the record, while chronological in order, could not be more sonically different. American Teenager is a high energy pop cut with snappy drums and crooning, catchy vocals. This is definitely the most mainstream sounding song on the album as well as the most popular song, which is ironic as Hayden satirizes the pop genre a bit with this track to touch on some serious, depressing topics—without making it obvious that the song is so serious on a first or even a fourth listen. As good as it is in the context of the entire album, it is a great standalone track as well.

We see Ethel reflecting on her teenage years here, struggling with alcoholism and feelings of depression and loneliness. She shares her own doubts and disappointments about feeling abandoned by God and betrayed by the false narrative of American idealism; she sings, “The neighbor’s brother came home in a box, but he wanted to go, so maybe it was his fault; another red heart taken by the American dream.”

Overall, the song is Ethel trying her very hardest to be strong in the face of life and all its hardships. She wants to come across as happy and okay, fighting to make herself believe that she is fine when she is not. Her father is dead, her lover has left her, and she feels immensely lost and unhappy and not sure how to feel. As she says, it’s just not her year.

3. A House In Nebraska

A House In Nebraska is where I’d say we go from sad to very sad. And it’s only downhill from here for our girl.

This is another reflective song as Ethel recalls all the memories she has of first and most significant lover, Willoughby Tucker. She sings about the times they spent together in an abandoned house in Nebraska, and how it had become more of a home to her than any other place in her life. Her love for him in their teenage years was so strong that he became her entire world and would have remained it. However, Willoughby ends up mysteriously leaving both Ethel and his own family behind without a word. Ethel sings that she is the reason he won’t come home, but that’s about all we get about why he leaves or where he leaves to. (There’s more clues from unreleased songs and information from Hayden herself, but I’ll spare you guys.) At the end of the day, it’s a big, painful mystery.

This is an absolutely heart wrenching track with Ethel pouring her heart out, hurt and desolation dripping from her every word. She only wants to belong to her lover again, and she is trying to accept that he has chosen to move on and away from her and the life they lived together. This is also a large theme in much of Hayden’s work: this idea of being stuck in a place (with large references to the place being the poor South) with no opportunity, somewhere almost inescapable that dooms a person from the start. Willoughby was able to leave it all behind, and Ethel is left dreamless, hopeless, and very much alone without him. Many people comment that this is a different level of sad—that even in her happiest fantasy, Ethel only wants to belong to somebody else. She lives to be loved.

4. Western Nights

Western Nights is another moody track with eerie Gothic influences in its instrumentation and lyricism. It’s one of the slowest, most somber cuts on the record, highlighting Ethel’s continued lack of hope and happiness.

Ethel has forced herself to move on to her next lover, and he’s not the best guy. He’s a dangerous, potentially abusive criminal who is desperate for money and quick to violence in order to get it. But Ethel says she loves him, even it their love is only able to be expressed through physical and sexual means and not emotional ones. Ethel stands by her man through his dangerous antics and bouts of madness, desperate to be loved and protected by someone.

We see glimpses of her unreliability as narrator here, saying she’s crying with this man only because she’s happy—when this is clearly not the case. She may very much not truly love this man, only staying with him due to how her own loneliness has diseased her mind and heart. She also pleads with her new lover not to love how she needs him, showing she may know he could easily choose to take advantage of her feelings for him. She desires a comfortable, peaceful life where she is loved, and she unfortunately knows deep down she will not find it.

5. Family Tree

This is a hard song to summarize since it’s so metaphorical, and it’s also difficult to place since I’m not completely sure where it fits into the timeline, but it is a good one.

What I do know is that Ethel’s lover from the previous track has been shot dead by the police after attempting to rob a bank, and Ethel has escaped and is now on the run. This renders her a missing person in her own town, leaving her to her own devices on how to survive.

There is the haunting sound of flies buzzing in the background of the track, highlighting the death lingering around Ethel as she makes her way on alone. The song, however, is not primarily about this. Instead, it shows her reflecting on her past and on the people who have wronged her as she fights for her life to escape to safety. She sings about her father, a powerful, intense pastor who always urged her to be strong and to survive by any means. There are some interesting lines, such as Ethel singing “I’ve killed before and I’ll kill again.” This could possibly be about killing her own father, who died years ago in a fire she may have set, but this is not confirmed. She also sings to Christ to forgive the bones she’s been hiding—potentially the bones of her father—and the bones she’s about to leave, which could refer to her leaving her lover to die while she escapes to save herself.

All we know for sure is that our girl Ethel has had a dark past full of violence, pain, and a whole lot of secrets. The song is so powerful and full of menace and heat, showing Ethel’s strong and rebellious side again for the first time since American Teenager.

6. Hard Times

This gut punch of a song is also about Ethel reflecting on past family trauma, but all the rage and intensity from the previous track is gone. She sings softly and vulnerably on this song, easing listeners into the pains of her past with her father. He is still a big part of her identity, hence the title of the album being Preacher’s Daughter.

Hard Times is about the sexual abuse Ethel endured from her father when she was only a child. She sings about having to realize that not all forms of love are good or healthy as she got older. She longed for a normal relationship with a father who loved her as a father should. Instead, she was betrayed by the person who should have been there to protect her, and she is left helpless and unsure how to cope with this. She also opens up about how she still looks up to her father in so many ways and how much that scares her. Her soft refrains of “I’m tired of you still tied to me” are so utterly painful and emotional.

This song shows Ethel at her most broken, trying to find solace and strength in the death of her father and coping with who exactly he was to her. Still on the run from the police, her confidence is waning and her mental health is deteriorating. She is in the lowest spirits of her life and is desperate to be saved. What she needs now is a hero.

7. Thoroughfare

And here he is.

Another favorite track of mine, this nearly ten minute slow burn song is the country-inspired banger of the record. It serves as a little, and rather short-lived, ray of hope for Ethel, who finds herself stranded on a road with only a pistol in her pocket when a man pulls up to her in his truck. He offers to take her anywhere she wants. Not having any other options, she agrees; she hops in, and they set off together for the west. This new man is named Isaiah, and—spoiler alert—he will be the man to end Ethel Cain’s life. (The clever Ms. Hayden sings Isaiah’s line “do you want to see the west with me?” to Ethel throughout the song, which sounds like “do you want to see the worst with me?” for a reason!)

The song delves into their relationship and how it develops as they travel all the way from Texas to California. Ethel expresses that for the first time since she was a child, she sees a man who isn’t angry, and she loves that about him. Isaiah, who Ethel (potentially unreliably) states went on this trip on a search for love, comes to the realization that Ethel may just be what he was looking for. Overall, it’s a great, rather upbeat song with dark and twisted foreshadowing perfectly mixed in.

8. Gibson Girl

Buckle up, guys. This is a dark one.

Hard cut from Thoroughfare, because the honeymoon stage has ended. The sketchy man with the pick up truck who offers to pick up young girls and drive them across the country as he looks for love ends up being a creep—are we shocked?

In this track, we see that Isaiah has gotten Ethel addicted to drugs and is pimping her out for money. The vocals here are slow, bleary, and purposefully sensual. It’s a very hazy, ethereal song that sounds gorgeously thick with moody, dark sexuality. With context, it is a gorgeous yet tragic and deeply upsetting track, especially with the vocals and the instrumentation sounding as drugged out as Ethel is.

We get an interesting look at Ethel’s psyche here as she tries to convince herself that this lifestyle of drug use and prostitution, an utter rebellion against her family and the church, is something that is good and is empowering for her—when really, unfortunately, this is not the case. Isaiah is taking full control of Ethel’s fate, manipulating her to believe that “if it feels good, then it can’t be bad.” Rearing their heads through the drugged out haze of the track, Ethel’s inner thoughts come through to express that she knows something is wrong and dangerous and very bad for her, but she cannot save herself from where she has found herself.

9. Ptolemaea

This is arguably the most disturbing song on the album, and there’s a ton to say about it. I could write an entire other piece about this one track alone—it is that complex. This is arguably Hayden’s magnum opus and an absolute masterpiece of a song.

Ptolemaea is defined as a section in the ninth and final circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, a place specifically for sinners who are deemed traitorous—the lowest of the low for all sinners, essentially. And it makes sense because we see Ethel at her lowest point here, trapped in her own terrified, deluded mind in a drug induced stupor before Isaiah advances on her with violent intentions and begins to hurt her. This song title can also apply to Ethel because she has left her traditional and religious home behind to search for something more, therefore “betraying” her background and her past. This decision to leave leads to her tragic fate at the hands of Isaiah, and others and perhaps Ethel herself may condemn her for it.

The track has many horrifying moments. The Family Tree flies are back, and they’re buzzing strong. We get some disturbing lines from Isaiah’s point of view; he tells Ethel he knows she loves blood, but “not like him.” A common interpretation for this line is that Ethel loves Jesus and spent her entire life worshipping his body and blood in Church. Her love for blood is good and pure while Isaiah’s love for it is twisted; it is a sadistic, dangerous sort of bloodlust, and he makes the clarification between the two, and the power that he has over her, very clear. Another interpretation is that Ethel “loves blood” because she may have killed her own father and is therefore a killer like him, but Isaiah loves it because he kills for the fun and thrill of it; he is not the same as someone like her. We also hear Isaiah manipulate a drugged Ethel in the first leg of the song, saying he loves her and needs her in this creepy, garbled speech before he begins to hurt her physically.

I won’t delve into the rather interesting plot hole of the Daughters of Cain cult that we know basically nothing about that is brought up in this song—Isaiah is probably a member, and perhaps Ethel’s mother or grandmother, who the two following albums will follow, may be as well—but that’s a mystery for another day. It’s brought up in the track as a potential reason for Ethel’s dark fate and will be further elaborated on records to come about her family tree. Who are they? What do they do? No clue, and no idea, but I can’t wait to find out. I’m waiting, Hayden.

As the song goes on, we really see Ethel’s survivalist instincts kick in for the first time since before Thoroughfare. Unlike in Gibson Girl, she is done pretending she is okay and immediately recognizes she is in danger. Her famous, ear-splitting shriek of “stop!” is so chilling that it’s hard to listen to without getting viscerally emotional. Almost even more jarring, once you realize it, is that the song ends with the disturbing sound of a death rattle, suggesting to us that Isaiah will not stop whatever heinous acts he is doing and signaling that Ethel’s end is hauntingly near.

10. August Underground

This is an instrumental track, and it is one I cannot fully describe in words. It is a chilling, horrific depiction of Ethel Cain’s last moments before she is killed by Isaiah and abandonned in his attic. All I can say is the song truly sounds like death, and that is exactly what it is meant to represent. It is, in my personal opinion, the most terrifying song on the record.

11. Televangelism

Televangelism is yet another instrumental cut, representing Ethel’s journey to the other side. The song is absolutely beautiful. It is a completely improvised solo piano track from Hayden, with a couple of off notes (music people, it’s when the chords sound creepy—I completely forgot what the actual name for them is called) bleeding into the end of the track to signal the past coming back to Ethel after she has passed away and come to on the other side. She has finally reached peace, whether in Heaven or purgatory or another sort of afterlife, but her traumatic human memories still tug at her soul. She has unfinished emotional business to deal with now.

12. Sun Bleached Flies

Sun Bleached Flies is the fan favorite penultimate track of the record, and it features a deceased Ethel singing about her life, coming to terms with how she feels about where she’s ended up.

This is a song about forgiveness. Even after all Ethel has been through, she finds it in herself to let her past go so she can finally be content. This decision isn’t without its pain. Ethel sings mournfully about wishing she could attend church once again on Sunday, but she also acknowledges that her faith was never enough to save her with the emotional line “God loves you, but not enough to save you.” Still, Ethel never stopped praying. She always kept her hope and faith in God, even when it got her nowhere, because that’s how she was raised. Her faith was ingrained into her, for better or for worse, and it is a part of her she cannot and will not carve out.

Guys, I really cannot express how beautiful this song is in words. I’m getting emotional just thinking about it. The gorgeous refrain of “if it’s meant to be, then it will be” sang over a gorgeous soprano saxophone shows us the levels of Ethel’s love and acceptance. You can picture her singing it with arms open, embracing the joyousness of sweet, ethereal peace for the first time in her life. Although she is flawed as all humans are, she is to her core a kind and good person and a person strong enough to break the cycle of abuse and tragedy through forgiveness, ending the curse of generational trauma on her family. To me, the most important thing about the track is that Ethel does not choose forgiveness for any of the people who have wronged her; she does it for herself, and she is finally able to rest after the weight of everyone else’s sins have been lifted from her shoulders. She is free.

But of course, we can’t end the song without a little sadness. One of the final lines is Ethel calling back to that house in Nebraska, where she was once happy with Willoughby. She longs eternally for the place with the only person who ever loved her for her with complete honesty, singing “it’s all I know, and it’s all I want now.”

Rest in peace, Ethel Cain.

13. Strangers

Another fan favorite track, Strangers is the last song on the album, serving as the closing track of the story of Ethel Cain. Hayden has stated while Family Tree (Intro) is like the introductory track to the record before the real first track, American Teenager, Strangers is like the closing credits track. It’s not the true ending, which is Sun Bleached Flies, but rather a post-ending ending.

And I’m glad it isn’t, because this track puts yet another dark and disturbing twist on Ethel’s story when listeners learn, in the first minute of the song, that her body has not only been mutilated and hurt by Isaiah, but it has also been preserved in a freezer for Isaiah to eat. He had completely consumed her in life, mind, body, and soul, and now is physically consuming her as well in death. Fuck this guy.

As sick as it is, Ethel finds strength and fortitude in the tragic situation since she has been able to move beyond it. Her clever lines “freezer bride, your sweet divine / you devour like smoked bovine hide / how funny, I never considered myself tough” are absolutely hilarious in a twisted, genius way. She takes on this soft, ultra feminine voice and tone while singing about how she wants to be Isaiah’s and loves him, content to be with him and within him in any way he wants her to be. There may be a part of Ethel who does think this way, but it is widely speculated this perspective from Ethel is not truly her, but a perspective Isaiah is pushing on her after her death. He makes her out to be a submissive, obedient corpse who views being consumed as them “making love.”

However, Ethel is able to break out of this box Isaiah puts her in, whether through her soul and spirit or in his own haunted mind, and shut down this portrayal of herself. While Sun Bleached Flies is Ethel’s true emotional ending, one of peace and overall forgiveness, Strangers shows the more dark and vengeful side of Ethel, relentless and cutthroat like her mother and father taught her to be. She is angry and hurt and powerful in death in ways she could not be when she was alive, coming to Isaiah as this triumphant force of a ghost that looks down on him in repulsion and almost pity. Her final, commanding demands at the end of the song of “am I making you feel sick?” are immensely powerful. They can be construed as her taunting Isaiah for eating her, knowing she will forever haunt him. She will always be a part of him, and while she is able to rest in peace, he will never know that same peace because of what he has done to her. Ethel has won, and Isaiah is now the one doomed to an unhappy fate.

The song ends on a more peaceful note as Ethel calls out to her mother, saying she’ll see her when she passes on to the other side.

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And that’s Preacher’s Daughter! I love this album—could you tell? I saw Ethel in concert a few weeks ago and I am still very much not over it.

Please let me know all your thoughts and comments about this piece or the record! I highly recommend it, there’s some great songs and a great story to enjoy from any one of these tracks.

If interested, check out my music related unofficial challenge below!

Thanks so much for reading!