murdered and cannibalized by a lover - ethel cain's "preacher's daughter"
the horrifying beauty of ethel cain's "preacher's daughter"
Today I got caught in terrible traffic on the highway and decided to listen to Ethel Cain’s concept album from 2022, “Preacher’s Daughter.” The compelling storyline of this album immediately caught my attention and I was captivated by the album from beginning to end. As I sat in traffic, I fell into a trance listening to the horrific screams of Ethel Cain. I actually got scared, I was in my car in the middle of a highway alone at night listening to “Preacher’s Daughter” and was scared like a little kid watching Chucky. This is a truly haunting, gruesome, and moving album that deserves closer inspection. What if I told you this album is not just a great musical art piece but the story of a woman from a religious community who escapes only to be murdered and cannibalized by her lover? Let’s take a deep dive into the story of Ethel Cain’s horrifically enchanting album “Preacher’s Daughter.”
Who is Ethel Cain?
Ethel Cain is a fictional persona created by the artist Hayden Silas Anhedönia. Anhedönia was born into a tight-knit Southern Baptist community in the Florida panhandle, where she was homeschooled by her father, a deacon. Ethel and her creator are both women who abandoned their previous Christian communities but Anhedönia tells Ethel’s story from a much darker landscape. The most apparent difference between Ethel and her creator, Anhedönia, is that Ethel is ultimately kidnapped, killed, and cannibalized. During a conversation with Vogue, Anhedönia said, “We inhabit the same space, at least visually, but I’m very different from her.” before deadpanning: “I love to laugh, and Ethel’s dead.” In “Preacher’s Daughter” we are told the story of Ethel being abused by her father, going out west, and being introduced to drugs, sex work, and malicious men.
The Storyline of “Preacher’s Daughter”
“Preacher’s Daughter” is a thirteen-track, 76-minute long album, falling under the genre of folk-rock-blues Southern Gothic opera according to Billboard, following Ethel, the preacher’s daughter, in her Alabama hometown who repeatedly loses lovers and faces religious trauma before being kidnapped and sold into prostitution and while trying to escape, her captor kills and eats her.
On the album cover, Cain sits under a picture of Jesus Christ while wearing a white dress in a wood-paneled home. The faint presentation of tattered American flags hung up on bedroom walls and desolate images of cabins and churches in grainy film in the visualizers for the other songs on the album further illuminate the Southern gothic Americana themes.
“Family Tree (Intro)”
“These crosses all over my body, remind me of who I used to be, and Christ forgive these bones I’ve been hiding from no one successfully”.
- Ethel Cain, “Family Tree (Intro)”
Cain’s voice is echoed as if she is standing alone in an empty church cathedral. The album is opened with themes of family trauma, “Jesus can always reject his father/But he cannot escape his mother’s blood,” Ethel will be forever tied to her ancestral tree and bloodline. The noose symbolizes how Cain’s character cannot run or control the community or bloodline she has been born into.
“He’ll laugh and say,/“You know I raised you better than this’/Then leave me hanging so they all can laugh at me” This line can be seen as foreshadowing that what led to Ethel’s dissolution can be largley blamed on her environment. This introduction to the album can be seen as a warning to proceed with caution, horror and violence are to come.
“American Teenager”
“Jesus, if you’re listening, let me handle my liquor, And Jesus, if you’re there, Why do I feel alone in this room with you?”
- Ethel Cain, “American Teenager”
This pop-centric coming-of-age song sets the scene in a small Alabama town called Shady Grove, where the late Preacher Joseph Cain’s legacy is in the hands of Ethel. It’s 1991, ten years after the death of Ethel’s father, the town preacher. Ethel doesn’t feel like she belongs in her hometown and romanticizes high school football games during Sunday church. She is losing her religious faith and begins to notice the deep-rooted darkness of her community after the neighbor’s brother dies in the military. She copes with alcohol while trying to continue her father’s legacy by leading her church’s congregation while going through the tribulations of losing people in her life.
“A House In Nebraska”
“And you might never come back home, and I may never sleep at night.”
- Ethel Cain, “A House In Nebraska”
In this nearly eight-minute-long ballad, Ethel reminisces about her ex-lover, Willoughby Tucker, who has left town. The couple would often fantasize about living far away from their hometown in an abandoned house located in the middle of Nebraska. She pleads and longs for him to come back “home” and laments in her loneliness knowing there is nothing she can do to bring him back home. The track fades out with a repeating refrain of “I feel so alone”, representing the looming isolation and loneliness of Ethel in her suffocating town.
“Western Nights”
“I’d hold the gun if you asked me to, but if you love me like you say you do, would you ask me to?”
- Ethel Cain, “Western Nights”
Cain stops fantasizing about her old lover and attempts to move on. Cain meets her new lover, Logan Phelps. Ether gets her first taste of recklessness with her new boyfriend Logan who has a motorcycle, engages in bar fights, and commits bank robberies. Ethel’s character can acknowledge his danger to society and herself but sees Logan as a way to escape, “Hold me across every state line,/I’m never gonna leave you baby,/Even if you lose what’s left of your mind.” Ethel becomes obsessed and infatuated with Logan saying she’d do anything for him, even become a fugitive like him. She begins to question what healthy love looks like with one of my favorite lines in the album, “I’d hold the gun if you asked me to, but if you love me like you say you do, would you ask me to?” Ethel does not always feel safe with Logan but will stick by his side no matter what, “please don’t love how I need you”, foreshadows how her devotion will be taken advantage of.
“Family Tree”
“These crosses all over my body remind me of who I used to be”
- Ethel Cain, “Family Tree”
Logan Phelps dies during a police shootout after a bank robbery. Ethel flees the scene and her ties to her hometown are finally cut off since she can no longer return to Alabama. The noose symbol in “Family Tree (Intro)” now has evolved into a weapon of her control, instructing herself to “take the noose off, wrap it tight around my hand.” Ethel now must find a new means of living on her own and washing away her sins: “So take me down to the river and bathe me clean.” We are exposed to a more flavorful taste of violence as we say goodbye to the religious Ethel Cain that her hometown community once knew, “I’ve killed before, and it’ll kill again”. But even after leaving Alabama Ethel is still tied to a bloodline of violence as she sings, “I’m just a child but I’m not above violence, My mama raised me better than that”. “Family Tree” foreshadows Ethel’s eventual death while portraying important themes in the album such as generational trauma and the inevitability and inescapability of violence. Ethel is bred into a certain violence she can not seem to escape and we will further explore these themes as the album proceeds.
“Hard Times”
“I was too young to notice that some types of love could be bad”
- Ethel Cain, “Hard Times”
Ethel reflects on the sexual abuse that was inflicted on her by her father as a child. Stripped of her childhood at a young age, Ethel was forced to grow up quickly — “Nine going on eighteen” — and still holds a tainted and confusing perspective of her preacher father. When her father passed she lost a predator rather than a caregiver but still respects the man he was outside of his abuse. She is losing her religion and desperate to escape, “I thought good guys get to be happy, I’m not happy”, Ethel feels trapped and defeated as goodness has only led her to endure abuse.
“Thoroughfare”
“‘Cause in your pickup truck with all of your dumb luck
Is the only place I think I’d ever wanna be”- Ethel Cain, “Thoroughfare”
The opening of the second act of the album. Ethel is wandering at the side of the highway and is picked up by Isaiah. Isaiah offers Ethel a lift from Texas to California. Ethel is ready to explore life now that she is freed of her past abuse, “loves out there, and I can’t leave it be”.
As the ten-minute-long epic continues, Ethel and Isaiah grow closer and fall in love. Ethel looks to Isaiah as a symbol of hope, with the name literally meaning ‘salvation of the lord’. Ethel feels saved and secure with him, “Cause for the first time since I was a child, I could see a man who wasn’t angry.”
Despite the hopeful theme of this song, darkness and danger are to come…
“Gibson Girl”
Ethel is sold into sex work by Isaiah while he begins giving her drugs. She has lost her sense of reality as she has plummeted into the darkness of his gaslighting and exploitation, “Baby, if it feels good/Then it can’t be bad.” Ethel is aware that she is in danger, “You want to get these clothes off and hurt me.” The lyrics of
”Gibson Girl” gives us a new look at the patriarchy and the way the male gaze can become a weapon as Ethel Cain tries to reframe her abuse as “iconic” or liberating/empowering.
“Ptolemaea”
“Ptolemaea” is named after a level of Dante’s Inferno (circles of hell) in which traitors reside, Ptolemy. Ethel feels like a betrayer to her family line. Since Cain left her family and her faith she is met with wrath that is only matched in hell. This song also ties in with the name of Isaiah as he is the name of the biblical prophet who relieves people of their sins, and in this story, Cain is the sacrifice for someone’s sins at Isaiah’s will. Isaiah betrays Ethel by saving her from her Father only for her to be faced by a wrath far worse as he attacks her. This song is the first glimpse into the mission of the Daughters of Cain, a cult that will ultimately lead to Cain’s death at the end of the album. Under the influence of his drugs and at the hands of his violence, Ethel begins to experience horrifying hallucinations of the metaphorical devil possessing Isaiah to kill and cannibalize her, and Ethel begs him to stop during her final bloody screams for help. The narration is taken over by a haunting voice, “you do well to say yes to me,” referencing the Christian call to submit to Christ and how Ethel has suffered under the abuse of men in positions of power.
“Blessed be the daughters of Cain, bound to suffering eternal through the sins of their fathers committed long before their conception
“Blessed be their whore mothers, tired and angry waiting with bated breath in a ferry that will never move again
“Blessed be the children, each and every one come to know their god through some senseless act of violence
“Blessed be you, girl, promised to me by a man who can only feel hatred and contempt towards you.”
“August Underground”
“August Underground” is named after a 2001 exploration horror film of the same title, August Underground is the story (or put more accurately, “the snuff film”) of two serial killers’ murderous rampage as they film their innocent victim’s death. A reference that allows us to infer that these are Ethel’s final moments before Isaiah murders her. This is an instrumental track that is reminiscent of the score of a horror movie. At this point in the story, Cain is fading away in the attic of an abandoned shack in the woods. She is unable to speak and has accepted her fate.
“Televangelism”
This song is a piano instrumental to portray Ethel’s ascension into heaven. Grief peace and relief all in one instrumental piece. Interrupted by the sound of a tape warping, this could be a reference to the prior track “August Underground” and the movie August Underground, suggesting that Ethel’s murder is being filmed as a snuff film of its own.
“Sun Bleached Files”
“God loves you, but not enough to save you
So, baby girl, good luck taking care of yourself.”- Ethel Cain, “Sun Bleached Flies”
Ethel Cain’s voice returns on this track after her death in this power ballad. Though she is detached from her religious roots she still longs for belief. The track questions the way religion can be both a symbol of abuse and hope, “God loves you but not enough to save you” She knows no one can save her in her final moment but she still prayed at her end. This is the end of her suffering cycle and her conclusion with deciding to forgive the ones who have harmed her, including herself. Finishing regarding ‘A House In Nebraska’ as she admits to always loving Willoughby Tucker, Ethel yearns for the house in Nebraska as she accepts the fate of her life and her death, “It’s all I know, and it’s all I want now.”
Though she found prayer as a remedy for her actions, God never stopped her from the fatal footsteps that led her to her terrible ending. She regrets all the wrongdoings and mistakes she made that led her to her death.
“Strangers”
“God is telling you and me there is death, for all of us
But then we find that the scriptures also tell us that we have a great promise, that there is a better place for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ”- Ethel Cain, “Strangers”
Ethel Cain finally reveals how she met her horrifically bloody ending, “in your basement I grow cold” In this five-minute-long epic, Ethel Cain illustrates topics of Stockholm syndrome, love, and cannibalism. Ethel sings, “I just wanted to be yours.” We receive a confirmation of her murder, “restricted to a polaroid in evidence,” Ethel hopes Isaiah is sick because of what he has done to her, “am I making you feel sick?” Ethel describes the flesh of her cannibalized body while speaking about the everlasting impact her death will have on her mother. Ethel addresses how she was resilient in her life while also stating she never thought someone would be chewing her tough flesh, “How funny, I never/considered myself tough” Cain will never be able to see her mother again, and this makes her angry so she turns in Isaiah’s stomach since she doesn’t have a grave to turn in, “If I’m turning in your stomach and I’m making you feel sick.”
Don’t worry ’bout me and these green eyes
Mama, just know that I love you (I do)
And I’ll see you when you get here
In the last lines of the album, Ethel calls out to her mother from beyond the grave, “think about it too hard or you’ll never sleep a wink at night again.”
So Ethel Cain died, what now?
Now that Anhedönia’s pseudonym, Ethel Cain, is dead, what now? Is the story over? Anhedönia told Vogue that she doesn’t “feel like her anymore – it’s like she’s dead and gone, and I’m just telling her story now.”
Anhedönia also added: “It’s been nice to see people digest not just the music but the whole story. I just started writing the book today, as I want to get on to something else.”
This was a great read, I wanted to post an article on this myself and stumbled upon this one, congrats for the patience and the research you put into this! ^^