Made an Ethel Cain documentary!! Thank you to anyone who watched this video ❤ go check it out ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Pjy-L_0jGDs.htmlsi=hOBBmFcag7l_cmbK
here’s the lore :) The singer’s real name is Hayden Anhedönia. Ethel Cain is from Shady Grove Alabama and is the daughter of Joseph (the preacher) and Vera. The album takes place in 1991 when Ethel is 20, and her dad died 10 years before the events of the album in a house fire. Family Tree (Intro) sets up the themes of the album and American Teenager is a fake pop song that’s about her frustration with the ideal American teenager and the American dream that are both impossible to achieve. The guitar at the end is also sampled from Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. The man she’s singing about in House in Nebraska is named Willoughby Tucker, who was her highschool sweetheart (as she says in the song), but they broke up because of Ethel’s actions/behavior. The house isn’t actually in Nebraska, but an abandoned house that they would imagine was there. Western Nights is about another man named Logan Phelps, who is a criminal and in the lore later dies in a police shootout. Her father was also abusive to her, as shown in Family Tree and Hard Times. She then runs away to Texas where, in Thoroughfare, she meets Isaiah Abram. While it seems like a happy song, there’s a missing poster Hayden made that says Ethel was last seen being forced into a black truck, so Ethel could be an unreliable narrator. Then in Gibson Girl, they’ve reached California and Isaiah has began pimping her out and giving her drugs. Ptolemaea is her hallucinating. Ptolemaea is a region of the ninth circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. Named after Ptolemy who killed his father in law and sons after inviting them over for a banquet, which connects the betrayal of them to the Isaiah betraying Ethel. August Underground and Televangelism is her dying (from being killed by Isaiah) and her soul going to heaven, respectively. Hayden has said they’re kind of two parts of the same song, with AU being Ethel’s physical death and TV being more of her spiritual death. Televangelism is also improvised! Sun Bleached Flies is her reflecting on her life after she’s died and thinking about how she still finds comfort in the church even though she hasn’t had the best experience with it. And finally, in Strangers, Isaiah has some kind of mental break and eats a piece of her body which then poisons him. Then the slower part at the end is her talking to her mom :) Her next project is an EP of the b-sides of this album that will focus on Ethel’s teenage years and her relationship with Willoughby :). then her next two albums after that will focus on Ethel’s mom, and then her paternal grandmother making it a trilogy. she also plans to write 3 books (of which she’s currently writing the first, called Diary of a Preacher’s Daughter) and make 3 movies
THANK YOU SO MUCH (i would pin your comment but don’t have the ability yet lol) This is actually insane that she was able to come up with such an in depth story for this album, this takes the music which was already amazing to a whole nother level realizing how many layers, and how intricate this is… it’s so dark but hauntingly beautiful, her mind is amazing, I’m even more blown away now. I will definitely be reading the books and watching the movies, so incredible
@@alyssab313 B Sides maybe sometime at the beginning of next year? she just put out new merch, announced a tour, and changed the visuals on her social media, so that’s what makes me say so. as for Preacher’s Wife, i’d say multiple years
"Don't think about it too hard. You'll never sleep a wink at night again Don't worry about me and these green eyes. Mumma, just know that I love you, and I'll see you when you get here" KILLS ME OMGGGGG EVERY TIME😢
One of the most heartbreaking points in the album in my eyes comes in Hard Times, when she's remembering the sexual abuse she endured from her father. As she's repeating those lines "I'm tired of you, still tied to me/too tired to move, too tired to leave" you can hear her singing in the background. Specifically, the repetition of "I just want to sleep" and then, "please, can I sleep, can I sleep?" To me, this really just echoes how deeply the trauma she endured from her father, and her difficulty to break away from the image she has of him in her mind of this great man despite the abuse he put her through, has stuck with her. It is keeping her up at night, all these years later, and she dies unable to make peace with it
I love this song so dearly, I have not stopped playing it since, idk how but she managed to capture that entire subject in such a beautiful yet heartbreaking way that’s able to resonate with so many people who have experienced that trauma, so heavy when she says “it’s just the way that you are” it makes me wanna cry rivers
intro was the first song i heard by her - swear it changed my fuckin life. i'm confident there'll never be another artist like hayden. shes one of a kind
imagine being this talented like fucking hell 😭😭 shes such a gift! i'm glad you loved it, Hard Times is one my favourites too (even though the subject matter is very deep and a tough one).
She’s unreal, hard times has been on repeat since this video, still a beautiful song, knowing the whole back story on it really nearly brought me to tears
Hard times is my favorite off this album - so so so mesmerizing. Glad you enjoyed!!! Hayden, the artist behind the Ethel Cain persona, has said she’s going to be releasing an EP of songs that talk more about the boy Ethel sings about in A House in Nebraska. It looks like she’ll be releasing that sometime soon. One of the songs that will be on the EP, Dust Bowl, is my favorite song by her. There’s a demo version on sound cloud and it’s amazing. Since you liked this album so much you should definitely listen to her other work including 3 past EPs (Carpet Bed, Golden Age, and Inbred), her most recent single (Famous Last Words), and maybe some of her unreleased stuff!!!
Working on those now!! Did a stream earlier where we looked at inbred and also that gorilla video she uploaded!! That’s uploading rn, So excited to be becoming a fan now after missing so much, definitely gonna catch up on everything and can’t wait to see what her future holds, an EP going more in depth on that sounds like an amazing idea I love how deep the character is, i feel so invested
Ptolemaea was the first song I ever heard from her, right up my alley and the one that got me absolutely hooked. However, I didn’t realize how vastly different it was from the rest of the songs, so I always get so excited to see other peoples reactions as well. Side note- I got my boss into Ethel (she likes the Taylor swift, pop-style music) and she said that song scared her so much she hasn’t listened to the rest of the album lol
😭😭😭OH MY GOD she should really give the rest of the album a try, Ptolemaea caught me off guard as fuck cause it came out of nowhere but I loved the production so much, that scream was insaneeee, that’s my favorite song of hers to see peoples reaction to 😭
I'm gonna be controversial here but one of the best albums I have ever listened to. She wrote, produced and add the vocal elasticity make her a talent that does not come around often. I have listen to this album at least 30 times in the last month and still makes me cry if you know the story she is telling.
I watched some people react to it as well after I did, it’s just the best thing seeing how everyone takes it, this became my favorite album to see reactions to
This is the first video of u ive ever seen n 10 minutes in already subscribed. u have genuinely cool as hell vibes i WILL be making my way thru ur past vids after I finish this one :))
I listen to this album non stop I swear. Everytime I do I pick up more things like the flies buzzing throughout multiple tracks and how the sunbleached flies are women raised in very religious communities who are taught from day 1 their only purpose is to serve and only when they die they'll be free. The police chatter at the end of ptolemea, the knocking in the attic, the gunshot in August underground and the shuffling in the transition to televangelism. How the warbling distortion in televangelism was used to represent the synapses snapping in the brain that recontextualises family tree (intro)s opening dialogue showing the entire album is set in the last seconds before Ethel completely dies in those last flashes of life kinda ways. It's a 10. An absolute 10
how family tree being two tracks can be interpreted as how some sects of Christianity believes that people die twice. How the end of thoroughfare pulls you along this driving caravan hippy kinda groove that's like her falling more into delusion about being kidnapped. I am shaking and snarling rattling the bars of my enclosure every time this album is mentioned.
@@neverxwas also if you’re want to gain so much subscribers do reaction to sleep token they are a metal band with so much sound like r&b and jazz they knew how to mix genre and they got a huge fan base who supportive if you watch anime you gonna love this band
INBRED EP REACTION HERE 👉 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jrSmYNrrnB8.htmlsi=NTw_vRTvqmveSuWB thank y’all for the insane support on this video, much love ❤❤❤
@@neverxwas i would recommend ones from all eras because she's definitely changed alot. Some simple but popular ones are her newest 'killer,' 'tears in the club' with the weeknd, and 'cellophane' is just a fka classic
@@neverxwas idk if you have ever listened to kpop but since you like storylines in albums you might like the album 'instinct part one' by onlyoneof!! it follows religious guilt and sexuality and uses insturmental inerludes to push the narrative, its meant to be seen as a cinematic piece. youre gonna need english translations tho!!
@@rxmz2386 WOW this sounds very interesting, and I actually do listen to a bit of K-pop so I feel like is something I may definitely look at in the future!! Are there videos with the translations out there?
when i listen to the end of strangers the repetition of "am i making you feel sick?" is so intense. first, she worries this will be what shes remembered for, nothing but a polaroid in a cold case. so, shes wailing and begging to be heard and to have an impact. is she making him feel sick, is she making him feel ANYTHING? is she worth even that? its like shes demanding him to remember her, to turn his stomach. then it becomes taunting almost, like now she knows and shes just wants to let him know that SHE knows its haunting him. its so angry and raw without even coming off that way at first my god.
I felt like it was also a reference to food poisoning since she was cannibalized by her captor. Like "If I'm turning in your stomach and I'm making you feel sick" and rolling in your grave since her final resting place was in someone else.
I've never listened to Ethel Cain and never even heard of her, but recently I heard Ptolemaea on social media and decided to try and listen to it. I was blown away. She has real, natural talent. The way her voice is so raw in a way and her vocals being great just makes her music better. Definitely gonna give the rest of the album a try tomorrow.
Okay so the story goes that we find out in Hard Times that her father was molesting her before he died. Later in her life She has one bf who treated her kindly named Willaby (the Nebraska song) but he leaves. Then she has a bad relationship in Western nights that ends with him getting shot by police. She’s on the run in Therofare and meets Isaiah. The song is actually misleading. Ethel was actually kidnapped forcefully but her Stockholm syndrome makes her re-create how they met to see more romantic. He starts drugging and pumping her out in Gibson girl. In Ptolemaea, she realizes how evil he is and “wakes up” to how dangerous he is. She tries to run away in August Underground and he drags he back to the attic, where he kills her. Televangelism ks her going to heaven. Sun bleached flies is her thinking back on her life. Strangers is Isaiah eating her body and her way CB ing
western nights is actually another man she's singing about, named logan phelps, he's the one who gets shot and killed. willoughby simply left the town before the events of the album.
i know someone typed out a brief description of the lore but here’s a lovely document with extra info and images for ya(; so glad you love it. drive.google.com/file/d/1iC5cGPG2-wgMMlw08k_3x1v9EAzmtFT-/view?usp=drivesdk
@@Artificialara thank you so much for this!! someone else showed me this as well and I had downloaded it, I’m thinking of doing another video soon of just read through this
You gotta listen to inbred by Ethel. This might be heresy amongst Ethel fans idk, but I like inbred more than preachers daughter. Its more similar to gibson girl.
I really love his videos like, I don't know but he got something that's just so cool and funny but also so depth and understanding lol i just vibe with you videos
OK HERE'S THE THING, I TRULY STRUGGLE WITH ETHEL'S DICTION, SHE REALLY NEEDS TO TAKE UP STUDYING DICTION / PRONUNCIATION WITH HER WORD LYRICS. ALSO, SHE REALLY NEEDS TO NOT GAG ON THE MIKE, ITS HARD TO HEAR WHAT LANGUAGE SHE IS SINGING A SONG TO ??? ITS GOOD THE YANKS UNDERSTAND HER SONGS??
