The more the merrier, right? That Ethel Cain album is honestly unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. It’s so unique and stands out in a way that’s hard to describe. It’s like stepping into a completely different world while listening to it.
You might be the most articulate and profound person I've seen react to this album so far.! I have listened to this album so much but you gave me new insight with your reaction!
More than that, it’s about the complexities that came with it - how someone she was supposed to look up to and learn from hurt her so deeply. It’s about the conflicting feelings as she is noticing little parts of her father in herself (because she looked up to him) and how much she hates it because of what he did to her
1) I was so excited when I saw this pop up in my recommendations! I've seen your reactions to a couple artists now, and subscribed because I always feel like you try and grapple with the meanings and symbolism, and I've been obsessed with this album recently. I feel like this album's really hard to grasp without context, because it follows a narrative based around the fictitious character of "Ethel Cain" (separate from the artist Hayden, who reportedly has a very different relationship to religion, and is apparently close with her family) that relies quite heavily on context - but I still feel like you did a phenomenal job. I'm going to try and break it down a little, even as a new fan - though some of it will be more based on my own personal interpretations: In Act One, Ethel introduces her dysfunctional (to put it mildly) family dynamics. Before the story starts, her father died in a fire, and she had a lover she met in school named Willoughby Tucker, who left her. They would spend time in a dingy, abandoned house in their small town, where they would share a dream of owning a house in Nebraska. This house didn't exist, but it was like a sanctuary in her mind. When he left, she was still continuing on her preacher father's sermons, but was addicted to alcohol. She meets a dangerous, abusive man, Logan Phelps, who's also a criminal. He dies in a shootout with the police, and she runs away. She reflects on her family, and how her father sexually abused her as a young child, and how she's still grappling with that abuse and betrayal every day. This is how Act One ends.
2) Act Two commences with Ethel being an unreliable narrator, with the story of how she and a new guy, Isaiah, takes her on a lovely and consensual road-trip through America - but there was supplementary material (a wanted poster) that was released alongside this album, where a witness claims they saw her getting forcibly kidnapped. She constructs a love story out of this, perhaps out of necessary survival mechanism, but also possibly out of a completely broken sense of what differentiates love and abuse. Isaiah takes her on a trip, where he promises her a new life if she does sex work, pimping her out and numbing her with drugs. This culminates in a sequence where she's lost all sense of reality, haunted by a trip gone bad that could be interpreted as demonic, but at the end is likely Death hunting her down. She tries to run away from Isaiah, but is instead killed, her body locked in his basement. The instrumental songs track her death and ascension to Heaven. In the last two songs, she reflects back on her own life, considering how she was raised to respond to violence with more violence, perpetuating the cycles that began long before her, but standing on the sidelines of life, waiting for salvation from a man (whether that be God, her father, or any of her lovers) from a taught passivity. In Heaven, she is able to reflect on everything that happened to her with love, compassion and forgiveness, but she wishes she could be alive again, either in Church listening to the choir, or to live her life in the Nebraskan house with Willoughby that never existed. In the last song, she looks down on her corpse and the ones left behind, but - in my opinion - she is only able to look on them with love and from the perspective of Heaven, even if she would be infernally angry and resentful in life. Isaiah has a psychotic break, and after killing her, cannibalises her, as her mother hopes and waits for her to come home. Her life is only remembered by a Polaroid in evidence of the way that she died, and by her mother. As she's beside her mother in grief, she tells her that she forgives her, she loves her, and that she'll see her again when she gets to Heaven.
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean. There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does. I think there are layers added to the album if analysed through the queer and disability lenses of knowing Hayden's experiences in real life, especially considering that rates of social shunning, violence, and murder are especially high among LGBTQ+ and autistic people. While I think it's debatable how much the fictional character resembles Hayden in these aspects, I can't help but personally pick up on a few of the themes, especially regarding abandonment and disillusionment in religion and religious communities, that I felt strongly myself as an autistic queer person in a Churchgoing rural area that allowed a perpetuation of violence and bullying that highly impacted on my family (though my experiences as a cisgender and British person are likely very different). I haven't managed to get around to her newest project "Perverts" yet in its entirety, but I'm so happy I discovered Ethel Cain's music recently. I feel like I'm constantly peeling back layers to it that I didn't know were there before.There's so much passion and thought that's gone into everything, from the lyrics and storytelling to the production and instrumentation - it shines through so strongly to me. I rally enjoyed your reaction, and how you engaged with the music, and tried to think of the symbolism and the meanings. As I said, I think it's really hard without context, but I think you managed to get to a lot of the core points even without it. I had to break this up, because TH-cam was in no way up to the task of processing my ramblings. To anybody who got this far: thank you, and sorry lol. ♡
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean. There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does. I think there are layers added to the album if analysed through the queer and disability lenses of knowing Hayden's experiences in real life, especially considering that rates of social shunning, violence, and murder are especially high among LGBTQ+ and autistic people. While I think it's debatable how much the fictional character resembles Hayden in these aspects, I can't help but personally pick up on a few of the themes, especially regarding abandonment and disillusionment in religion and religious communities, that I felt strongly myself as an autistic queer person in a Churchgoing rural area that allowed a perpetuation of violence and bullying that highly impacted on my family (though my experiences as a cisgender and British person are likely very different).
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean. There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does. I think there are layers added to the album if analysed through the queer and disability lenses of knowing Hayden's experiences in real life, especially considering that rates of social shunning, violence, and murder are especially high among LGBTQ+ and autistic people. While I think it's debatable how much the fictional character resembles Hayden in these aspects, I can't help but personally pick up on a few of the themes, especially regarding abandonment and disillusionment in religion and religious communities, that I felt strongly myself as an autistic queer person in a Churchgoing rural area that allowed a perpetuation of violence and bullying that highly impacted on my family (though my experiences as a cisgender and British person are likely very different).
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean. There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does.
Incredible reaction to this album, you clearly are so talented at receiving an artists vision and getting the ideas they’re presenting in their songs. Amazing!!
well if we getting into ethel, would love to see a reaction to “magdalene” by the legendary FKA Twigs. just rated as the top 100 albums since year 2000 by rolling stone! it has religious undertones and is an incredible experience both lyrically and especially sonically. her music is, at its core, electronic but extremely avant-garde and experimental and there’s a Future feature on the record! fr one of the most visionary artists of our generation. love the channel bro keep it up ❤️👏
Oh, most definitely! I honestly forgot about her for a minute, so I’m glad you reminded me. Now I’m even more hyped to jump into her album. I can’t wait to see what she’s all about!
Although there is a somewhat straightforward narrative going on here, I like this reading of the songs and do not believe they and the narrative are mutually exclusive. I will say that during, "Thoroughfare," I often find myself with my fingers crossed hoping the reacter catches the lie in, "loves never meant much to me," because she just spent the first half of an album telling us otherwise. The more metal elements and the more obvious inclusion of theology come to the forefront during, "Ptolemaea" through that trilogy, ("Ptolemaea," "August Underground," & "Televangelism,) and into "Sun Bleached Flies" & "Strangers." There are a lot of different points of view within Christian theology you could use to interpret this album, but it might be more useful to know that Hayden is from the south, specifically North Florida and Alabama. A reread of the Divine Comedy, (particularly the Inferno,) is also not a bad idea, but always remember that Dante was not writing an earnest description of Hell, Purgatory, & Heaven, but utilizing the concepts as a way to express a critique and call out of his society, (which he gets exiled from.) We often read that literature out of its context, and as a result we take it more seriously than it was intended--The poets of the Roman Empire, (later Byzantine, Holy Roman, etc., etc.,) were fully engaged in "call-out culture."
ur actually INSANE for dropping a lana AND ethel reaction on the SAME day 😭❤️ tysm
The more the merrier, right? That Ethel Cain album is honestly unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. It’s so unique and stands out in a way that’s hard to describe. It’s like stepping into a completely different world while listening to it.
You might be the most articulate and profound person I've seen react to this album so far.! I have listened to this album so much but you gave me new insight with your reaction!
Hard times is about the character Ethel being SA’d by her father and how that continues to haunt her.
More than that, it’s about the complexities that came with it - how someone she was supposed to look up to and learn from hurt her so deeply. It’s about the conflicting feelings as she is noticing little parts of her father in herself (because she looked up to him) and how much she hates it because of what he did to her
1) I was so excited when I saw this pop up in my recommendations! I've seen your reactions to a couple artists now, and subscribed because I always feel like you try and grapple with the meanings and symbolism, and I've been obsessed with this album recently. I feel like this album's really hard to grasp without context, because it follows a narrative based around the fictitious character of "Ethel Cain" (separate from the artist Hayden, who reportedly has a very different relationship to religion, and is apparently close with her family) that relies quite heavily on context - but I still feel like you did a phenomenal job. I'm going to try and break it down a little, even as a new fan - though some of it will be more based on my own personal interpretations:
In Act One, Ethel introduces her dysfunctional (to put it mildly) family dynamics. Before the story starts, her father died in a fire, and she had a lover she met in school named Willoughby Tucker, who left her. They would spend time in a dingy, abandoned house in their small town, where they would share a dream of owning a house in Nebraska. This house didn't exist, but it was like a sanctuary in her mind. When he left, she was still continuing on her preacher father's sermons, but was addicted to alcohol.
She meets a dangerous, abusive man, Logan Phelps, who's also a criminal. He dies in a shootout with the police, and she runs away. She reflects on her family, and how her father sexually abused her as a young child, and how she's still grappling with that abuse and betrayal every day. This is how Act One ends.
2) Act Two commences with Ethel being an unreliable narrator, with the story of how she and a new guy, Isaiah, takes her on a lovely and consensual road-trip through America - but there was supplementary material (a wanted poster) that was released alongside this album, where a witness claims they saw her getting forcibly kidnapped. She constructs a love story out of this, perhaps out of necessary survival mechanism, but also possibly out of a completely broken sense of what differentiates love and abuse. Isaiah takes her on a trip, where he promises her a new life if she does sex work, pimping her out and numbing her with drugs.
This culminates in a sequence where she's lost all sense of reality, haunted by a trip gone bad that could be interpreted as demonic, but at the end is likely Death hunting her down. She tries to run away from Isaiah, but is instead killed, her body locked in his basement. The instrumental songs track her death and ascension to Heaven. In the last two songs, she reflects back on her own life, considering how she was raised to respond to violence with more violence, perpetuating the cycles that began long before her, but standing on the sidelines of life, waiting for salvation from a man (whether that be God, her father, or any of her lovers) from a taught passivity. In Heaven, she is able to reflect on everything that happened to her with love, compassion and forgiveness, but she wishes she could be alive again, either in Church listening to the choir, or to live her life in the Nebraskan house with Willoughby that never existed.
In the last song, she looks down on her corpse and the ones left behind, but - in my opinion - she is only able to look on them with love and from the perspective of Heaven, even if she would be infernally angry and resentful in life. Isaiah has a psychotic break, and after killing her, cannibalises her, as her mother hopes and waits for her to come home. Her life is only remembered by a Polaroid in evidence of the way that she died, and by her mother. As she's beside her mother in grief, she tells her that she forgives her, she loves her, and that she'll see her again when she gets to Heaven.
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean.
There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does.
I think there are layers added to the album if analysed through the queer and disability lenses of knowing Hayden's experiences in real life, especially considering that rates of social shunning, violence, and murder are especially high among LGBTQ+ and autistic people. While I think it's debatable how much the fictional character resembles Hayden in these aspects, I can't help but personally pick up on a few of the themes, especially regarding abandonment and disillusionment in religion and religious communities, that I felt strongly myself as an autistic queer person in a Churchgoing rural area that allowed a perpetuation of violence and bullying that highly impacted on my family (though my experiences as a cisgender and British person are likely very different).
I haven't managed to get around to her newest project "Perverts" yet in its entirety, but I'm so happy I discovered Ethel Cain's music recently. I feel like I'm constantly peeling back layers to it that I didn't know were there before.There's so much passion and thought that's gone into everything, from the lyrics and storytelling to the production and instrumentation - it shines through so strongly to me. I rally enjoyed your reaction, and how you engaged with the music, and tried to think of the symbolism and the meanings. As I said, I think it's really hard without context, but I think you managed to get to a lot of the core points even without it.
I had to break this up, because TH-cam was in no way up to the task of processing my ramblings. To anybody who got this far: thank you, and sorry lol. ♡
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean.
There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does.
I think there are layers added to the album if analysed through the queer and disability lenses of knowing Hayden's experiences in real life, especially considering that rates of social shunning, violence, and murder are especially high among LGBTQ+ and autistic people. While I think it's debatable how much the fictional character resembles Hayden in these aspects, I can't help but personally pick up on a few of the themes, especially regarding abandonment and disillusionment in religion and religious communities, that I felt strongly myself as an autistic queer person in a Churchgoing rural area that allowed a perpetuation of violence and bullying that highly impacted on my family (though my experiences as a cisgender and British person are likely very different).
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean.
There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does.
I think there are layers added to the album if analysed through the queer and disability lenses of knowing Hayden's experiences in real life, especially considering that rates of social shunning, violence, and murder are especially high among LGBTQ+ and autistic people. While I think it's debatable how much the fictional character resembles Hayden in these aspects, I can't help but personally pick up on a few of the themes, especially regarding abandonment and disillusionment in religion and religious communities, that I felt strongly myself as an autistic queer person in a Churchgoing rural area that allowed a perpetuation of violence and bullying that highly impacted on my family (though my experiences as a cisgender and British person are likely very different).
3) In my own interpretation, I wonder if this cannibalism is linked at all to the Eucharistic ritual of the eating of Christ's blood and flesh, who died to atone the Original Sin. In a way, the generational trauma, and the cycle of violence ends with her death, because she's the youngest in her family - and through her death, her own inevitable sins (real and/or perceived) are wiped clean.
There's supposed to be an album at some point that follows on from her mother's perspective - I believe this album was conceived with the story of a film in mind, and I believe there should be a book in the works - but none of that is easy to make happen, and it's likely to take time if it does.
saying "it's creeping me out a bit" at A House In Nebraska when Ptolemaea is waiting in line 😭
I love your connections in each song. You really break the album down well and bring really interesting perspectives. Great reaction 💜
at exactly 2:23 you realized something special was about to happen with this album
Incredible reaction to this album, you clearly are so talented at receiving an artists vision and getting the ideas they’re presenting in their songs. Amazing!!
you need more subs!! honestly the most open minded and entertaining reaction channel out rn💗💗
you deciphering her lyrics is actually so entertaining. i love your understanding of her lyrics!
i bet ptolemaea is insaneee live. it's so haunting and unique i love it
the dale in american teenanger is Dale Earnhardt, the late american race car driver, ethel also had a song called Earnhardt :)
saw her live in Amsterdam back in june. She sound exactly the same live if not better
he's feeding us today.... thank you king...
You’re welcome. I’m trying here 💪🏾😎
The best concept album. Ethel is brilliant🖤💫🖤
As soon as I saw this notification I knew you were about to eat the analysis of this album up 😂
YESSSS THANK YOUUU
I’m so incredibly tuned
we’re simply too seated
you da goat
she produced this entire album
well if we getting into ethel, would love to see a reaction to “magdalene” by the legendary FKA Twigs. just rated as the top 100 albums since year 2000 by rolling stone! it has religious undertones and is an incredible experience both lyrically and especially sonically. her music is, at its core, electronic but extremely avant-garde and experimental and there’s a Future feature on the record! fr one of the most visionary artists of our generation. love the channel bro keep it up ❤️👏
Oh, most definitely! I honestly forgot about her for a minute, so I’m glad you reminded me. Now I’m even more hyped to jump into her album. I can’t wait to see what she’s all about!
Although there is a somewhat straightforward narrative going on here, I like this reading of the songs and do not believe they and the narrative are mutually exclusive.
I will say that during, "Thoroughfare," I often find myself with my fingers crossed hoping the reacter catches the lie in, "loves never meant much to me," because she just spent the first half of an album telling us otherwise.
The more metal elements and the more obvious inclusion of theology come to the forefront during, "Ptolemaea" through that trilogy, ("Ptolemaea," "August Underground," & "Televangelism,) and into "Sun Bleached Flies" & "Strangers."
There are a lot of different points of view within Christian theology you could use to interpret this album, but it might be more useful to know that Hayden is from the south, specifically North Florida and Alabama. A reread of the Divine Comedy, (particularly the Inferno,) is also not a bad idea, but always remember that Dante was not writing an earnest description of Hell, Purgatory, & Heaven, but utilizing the concepts as a way to express a critique and call out of his society, (which he gets exiled from.) We often read that literature out of its context, and as a result we take it more seriously than it was intended--The poets of the Roman Empire, (later Byzantine, Holy Roman, etc., etc.,) were fully engaged in "call-out culture."