some gruesome songs in my library
As I was sorting through my library after going off streaming, I noticed that I had far too many gruesome songs that I needed to write and/or tell someone about. The list of the songs I will be talking about will be single-handedly released (or left unreleased) by one artist (Ethel Cain) from my recent memory because her music blows any other violence by others in my library out of the water in my opinion. I won’t introduce her because you can read her Wikipedia or otherwise research her if you care. Anyway, a few of the songs I’ll talk about are unreleased and are this way for a very good reason, but most slipped through her own censorship and were officially released, so she is making some money out of this (streaming cents, but still). I’ll make sure to add the appropriate content warnings before each song so you know what to skip. Continue reading at your own discretion, though I’ve tried to pace this post from least gruesome to most gruesome.
Wrestling in Dirt Pits (unreleased)
Content Warning
Sexualized violence
Let’s start this rather tame with a song that is mostly „just“ disgusting. It seems that the narrator is a closeted queer person who is frequently having intercourse with the son of a preacher. The sex is really violent, painful, and seems to only provide pleasure for the preacher’s son. The name of the song and the general vibes make me think they’re doing it on a farm, being so messy and violent that it looks like they’re wrestling in the dirt. The fact that they’re wrestling in it also makes me think that their act is not consensual which is a general theme in her discography.
There’s a line on this song that got me thinking a lot about the logistics and possibly the deeper meaning of the lyrics: „Spitting his love in my mouth.“ So there is the obvious act of spitting in their mouth, but he’s also spitting his „love“ which could mean two things: 1) His kind of love is very violent and forceful, or 2) love means ejaculation and he is spitting his ejaculation into her mouth.
Unpunishable
Content Warning
Prostitution, sexualized violence
In this song, the protagonist is a woman performing sexual services for a man she doesn’t know which is a fact she repeats over and over. He kicks everyone out from where they are because he wants to have her all for himself. The narrator makes it clear that she is there to provide sexual services on demand to anyone who asks because she is so desperate for the pleasure no matter how painful it is. She seems to want you to know—as the listener—that she is the one in control, but either she is lying or what’s going on is some BDSM shit that she is consenting to, the latter being quite unlikely based on the setting in the intro.
She considers herself unpunishable because she enjoys the pain he inflicts on her. He hits her red and blue and she likes it, so much so as to want more. It seems that she is doing or has done something worthy of punishment in her opinion, but considers what’s happening a punishment that isn’t working because she’s having a good time based on what she sings on the chorus:
I don't even know who you are, babe
I'm too good for you
And it makes me need it even more
Whose is it now? It's yours
Red and blue
Used and abused
It's still never enough
I'm unpunishable
I think the narrator wants us to think that she is in control, that she wants this, but it if she’s talking about this like it’s a dysfunctional punishment, can we really trust her on that?
Inbred
Content Warning
Child neglect & abuse, sexualized violence
Inbred, as the title says, tells a story of an inbred family that is living in extreme poverty. She has no appropriate clothing or heating that she is literally dependent on her proximity to her brother to stay warm as well as—metaphorically—his protection, the stove doesn’t work well, and they don’t seem to have running water to put it out, so she has to piss on it. It seems that the house was a site of shooting because the door has holes (plural) and she is watching her brother from the holes, whether in admiration or out of fear; keeping a shitty door between them is still better protection than nothing in case he turns violent. There’s a „comatose“ mother in the other room that is starting to smell and she is resisting the idea that the mother’s dead and that she’s source of the smell. Based on their house’s description, they probably wouldn’t afford to bury her anyway.
What’s interesting is the development that her brother’s criminal status undergoes throughout the song. He goes from being followed by the cops to being wanted by the feds, meaning his criminality became more „prestigious.“ Despite all that, she strongly clings to the idea that they’re a family and that he has her back. An admission of everyone being bad, but her being still better than her brother and the rest, hangs in the air. There is a guy who she is scared of, but her brother isn’t around to protect her. She threatens him with her brother that he would kill him if he was there, but he’s not there and isn’t there at any point in the song except the beginning. He’s always on the run and away from her. Or he’s dead and she’s in denial there as well, because in the pre-chorus she sings: „If he wakes up, he'll show you what I'm talking about.“ How could someone sleep through an assault? If he really cared and was there, he would protect the narrator, so clearly something’s off.
Back to the guy, he’s a regular and seems to have done all kinds of things to her. She confronts him asking: „You get off on innocence so you savor this; Does your baby know her daddy's a rapist?“ In her panic, she admits that she isn’t scared of God, but of his absence because that would mean that all the pain inflicted on her would go unpunished. This is another piece of evidence that her love for her brother and faith that he has her back is nothing but a delusion that she concocted to keep herself going.
While Inbred and Unpunishable are both not canon to the Ethel Cain epos on Preacher’s Daughter and later projects, they already establish Ethel Cain (the character) as an unreliable narrator.
Gibson Girl
Content Warning
Prostitution, sexualized violence
This track is part of a larger story on a concept album that I won’t get into in full detail. To me, it’s the other side of the same coin that Unpunishable would be pressed to. Here, we at least get a sort of honest story that she is being forced to do this. She is being drugged, sold into prostitution, and exposed to all kinds of physical and verbal violence. She still tries to spin it as something aesthetic, but fails miserably when she recounts what she has to do. What convinced me of that was that the narrator focuses a lot of what the „you“, meaning the customer or Isaiah (her abuser), wants rather than what she wants. There’s a very clear indifference as to who is the one abusing her because they all do the same. You also get to hear that she is having self-doubts about the morality of this because the reality is that she wasn’t initially forced to do this, but is forced to continue because Isaiah, her abuser, is making bank on her body.
Ptolemaea
Content Warning
Child sexual abuse, sexualized violence
This song is the soundtrack of hell. It’s not so much the music itself, which is still very haunting, but what’s going on. The track is called Ptolemaea after the ninth circle of hell for treachery in Dante’s Inferno. It is named after that circle because Isaiah betrayed her trust (dubious, he was bad from the start despite her romanticizing her kidnapping). From her intoxicated state, events begin to blur and Isaiah’s fake love becomes all encompassing. „You don’t have to say yes to me“ is what is very clear because he doesn’t ask her for consent; he just does what he wants.
After the events in Gibson Girl, Ethel tries to escape her abuse. However, because she is drugged and doesn’t know the area, she gets lost in the middle of nowhere and her abuser eventually finds her. In her intoxicated condition, she mistakes him for the devil which is not really an illusion or exaggeration simply based on what he had inflicted upon her up to that point. He drags her to his basement and prepares her execution. Before that happens, though, we get to hear the devil recount all the evils she has committed and that she is being punished for, among them one likely alluding to her father’s murder (because he molested her and got away with it because he was a respected priest in their community). However, she’s mostly being punished for crimes she didn’t commit herself, but her father and ancestors did, hence the name „Ethel Cain“. For those who don’t know, the Biblical Cain committed the first sin on Earth and his lineage was thus cursed by God for his deeds.
Anyway, the outro of this song just makes me want to cry, vomit, and pull my eyes out:
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
I am no good nor evil, simply I am, and I have come to take what is mine
I was there in the dark when you spilled your first blood
I am here now as you run from me still
Run then, child
You can't hide from me forever \
In the next song, she gets killed then ascends to heaven and then reflects on her life. Cute and heart-wrenching, but not the point of this post. The track that comes after, though, is.
Strangers
Content Warning
Cannibalism
After killing her, and this took me a couple of listens to figure out because the narrator tries to romanticize what’s going on, Isaiah decides to devour her. She had been dead in the basement for a while until her body was cold. Despite all that has happened, she still calls herself his „freezer bride“ and when he begins eating her, she is surprised at how tough she is to chew on. Throughout this, there is some reflection happening on her „goodness.“ But the reflection doesn’t lead anywhere because she continues to beg Isaiah to like her, the spirit that haunts him. She wants herself to be his while the human flesh in his stomach is making him sick. To add fuel to the fire and why this woman was better off dead (which he told her himself before killing her as she admits in the previous track), she tells him that she still loves him and asks him nicely not to overthink what he did to her because he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
I am still incredulous at this song because how the fuck are you so forgiving?! She said in Sun Bleached Flies that she resigned herself to forgiving evil deeds done to her „as they come back to [her]“ because of their frequency and her powerlessness, so it’s evident that it’s long been part of her character, but still, have some more self-respect?
Selby Wall (unreleased)
Content Warning
Sexualized violence, murder fetishism
In true Ethel Cain fashion, the narrator wants the (abused) narrator to believe that she is in control which is not too far off from reality in my experience, singing: „And every time I let you fuck me, I think about how easy it would be to take your life away from you.“ Yes, girl, overpower him. The guy is violently fucking her until she bleeds and she fantasizes about hitting back which is unique in the stories I’ve retold thus far. Here, the victim feels some sort of power and plans an „escape.” She finds out that her abuser is cheating on her so she meets up with the woman, they decide to team up, have sex, and relish the control they have and the pleasure they feel. They decide to kill him, cut him up „with a rusty saw,“ bury him in her backyard, and then masturbate/have sex on his grave. This is a happy end, I guess. I support victims fighting back, but, girl, you didn’t have to cut him up and masturbate on his grave. That’s creepy.
Two Children in a Motel (unreleased)
Content Warning
Suicide, suicidal ideation, incest
This one is by far the most disgusting and shocking song of all. The mom dies giving birth to twins who are not much later left alone by their dad who commits suicide or overdoses on their home carpet which leaves a lasting stain (probably meant literally and metaphorically). The children build a duo who is treading a fine line of not following in their parents’ path (dying/ending it). They have sex together while metaphorically covered in worms and dirt because they know what they’re doing is breaking a taboo. But to them, what they’re doing is by far not as bad as the neglect and carelessness they’ve experienced. They’re hardened by the reality that no one cares about or for them, ever, so they’ve promised each other absolute loyalty for life.
Some last words
If you read this far, I’m so sorry, but also thanks. I would honestly wipe out the last two entries from my memory if I could, but I can’t. This is stuck with me for life. In any case, this shouldn’t give you a false view of the artist behind these. She is an incredible musician who is capable of telling a story through music like it was multimodal. For someone to make Preacher’s Daughter and later Willoughby Tucker, they have to fuck around a bit and tread the politically incorrect territory. Sometimes I wonder what takes up the most space in her mind, then I remember she is the biggest Zelda fan on this planet so she would probably be replaying Ocarina of Time in her mind while meditating to her ten sound machines.