“Ethel Cain lived and died loving and praying to be loved back,” Hayden Anhedönia said in an interview about her body of work, including the newest album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You. “The entire Preacher’s trilogy is centered around love. Love lost, love gained, love perverted, love stolen. Love is everything to us. It doesn’t matter what you love or who you love, but that you love something — and that love is what propels you forward every day.”
Anhedönia is perhaps better known as Ethel Cain, a fictional character and persona derived from Anhedönia’s real-life experiences and the moniker under which she has been releasing music. Set before the events of Anhedönia’s first full-length album, Preacher’s Daughter, Willoughby Tucker narrates a doomed love story between Cain and Willoughby Tucker. The album resembles an exploration of love, from teenage idolization and heartbreak to the somber negotiation to find what is left of the self after.
The album is extremely cathartic to listen to. The album opener “Janie” feels like a wound that has just begun to hurt. Lamenting about a close friendship falling apart, Cain begs not to be left in a delicate head voice that screams vulnerability. And she resigns herself to the emotional toll of this love, repeating “I will always love you” again and again. “Fuck Me Eyes,” easily the happiest-sounding song on the album, has synths that sonically sound like something bursting, both optimistic and desperate. “A Knock on the Door” features minimal guitar, and Cain’s voice is higher, more naive and childlike, even as she sings, “Everything I’ve loved, I’ve loved it straight to death.”
Anhedönia’s sonic portrayal of emotions is so apt and elaborate. Low, husky vocals and wind chimes over guitar make up “Dust Bowl.” Throughout the verses, Cain includes vocal moments where notes on a word modulate down and back up like a heartbeat. The song feels like friction, a catalytic buildup of frustration and desolation, especially with the re-entrance of bass and drums in the second verse which hit like a kick to the chest. “Nettles,” which describes the progression of Cain and Tucker’s relationship until the song takes place, feels like an unraveling. The production is tender, heavy on the strings in a way that sounds simultaneously upbeat and despondent. I cannot shake the sadness clinging to the sounds, which feel like they are channeling a growing grief caused by the dynamic between the fear of loss and the inevitability of loss.
There are three instrumental tracks that altogether feel like a slow slip down the wrong path. “Willoughby’s Theme” features a constant, buzzing guitar, both grounding and unsettling, resonating against my bones. Yet, there is a hint of brightness toward the end in the crescendo and layering of all the production. On the other hand, “Willoughby’s Interlude” reminds me of the midpoint of a movie where everything starts going wrong. A sound akin to some disembodied thing moving through the production leads to a slow fade out and by the end, nothing is left but a wind blowing. Perhaps the rose-tinted lenses through which Cain sees Tucker are falling apart, and the song embodies the beginning of coming back down to a grimmer reality. The final instrumental, “Radio Towers,” features a constant beeping reminiscent of a heart monitor and includes a discomforting buzzing that creeps through a tense piano and guitar arrangement. The song gets dissonant and unsettling in a way at the end that just feels awfully wrong.
The last two songs on the album, “Tempest” and “Waco, Texas,” negotiate an emotionally charged, tragic dialogue between Cain and Tucker. “Tempest” is the only song on the album from Tucker’s point of view. Coming after “Radio Towers,” the song opens as a continuation of the darker and grittier tone. The piano chords are deeper, the feeling of wrongness lurks, and the heart monitor sounds carry over for a bit before disappearing entirely.
Tucker is cruel and resentful (“Do you swing from your neck with the hope someone cares?”) yet painfully apologetic. “I’m gonna regret this,” Anhedönia-as-Tucker sings, and the background production pulls away abruptly. “Forever,” she continues. “Forever. The string of “forever” continues, as if allowing Tucker time to repair things between them. But nothing happens, and the heavy production returns, a continuation of the past decision and an acceptance of condemnation.
The closing song, “Waco, Texas,” is a little over fifteen minutes of regret. With lyrics that hint at the inevitable coming of morning, I see this song as Cain exiting the transformative journey of the night to face the sun. Where do you want to be — and what will you be — when the sun makes everything visible? Cain sings about leaving Tucker behind come morning, both revisiting parts of the relationship and clinging onto hope for the future. “Will it be like this forever?” she asks Tucker in “Tempest.” Will the hurt I’ve caused and experienced because of this love last forever, on me or you? Will this grief be forever?
Experiencing this album — all of Ethel Cain’s love, regret, and grief — was a little bit like my body was physically melting into the production and the sadness. Maybe it is the knowledge that Cain’s death and the downfall of their relationship is inevitable. Maybe it is how the album pokes holes in the relationship from the very start, ultimately pushing it to an irresolvable crisis. Or perhaps it is the ultimate realization Cain has: that “love is not enough in this world.”
Maybe the pervasive sadness of this album takes hold in my own realizations that I’ve idolized a certain kind of love-slash-devotion all along. And the conclusion I find at the end of this album’s journey is that it will not be enough. After all, Cain ends the album singing, “But it’ll never be good enough like I want to believe it is.”
Pen Fang is a Sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. They can be reached at pfang@cornellsun.com.
