Within the tones of Hayden Anhedonia’s melancholic and haunting music stands the story that has led her audience deeper into a fictional world. The story of Ethel Cain has continued throughout Anhedonia’s discography, with her character coming alive in “Preacher’s Daughter,” released in 2022, and “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You,” released in August 2025.
“Preacher’s Daughter” holds the life story of Ethel Cain and all she has done to persevere through the trauma she was given. Each song in this album continues to tell the story of a time in Ethel’s life and what has become of her through these turning points. The setting begins in a small town named Shady Grove, Alabama, where Ethel is the daughter of her town’s preacher, having a restrictive and religious upbringing. Within the third song in the album, it takes a short break from the struggles Ethel continues to endure, and instead showcases one of the happiest moments of her life.
“A House In Nebraska” represents a reflection of love that once was, her teenage romance with Willoughby Tucker, which was once raw and passionate. At its core, it hosts the lingering emotional print that Willoughby has left Ethel with, while this house that sits at the edge of Nebraska holds a shared dream between the two, being a place frozen in memory
While Anhedonia has explained that Ethel is an unreliable narrator several times via her Tumblr posts, the telling continued to leave the thought of “why did Willoughby leave such an imprint on Ethel?” Here, becomes the story of the album “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You.”
This album functions as a prequel to the story of “Preacher’s Daughter,” exploring the early relationship between Ethel and Willoughby, revealing its sweetness and flaws. We begin with the opening track of the album, “Janie.” Janie is said to be Ethel’s childhood best friend, whom she considers to be her “only real friend” in her small religious town. Within the song, it captures the fear of that friendship changing, considering Janie enters a romantic relationship and other life phases that may leave Ethel behind. The track sets up themes that recur throughout the album of Willoughby and Ethel: loss, pain of being replaced, longing and emotional vulnerability.
At the beginning of this track, we learn about the insecurities that Ethel begins to hold, the fear of being replaced. Within the first chorus of the song, Ethel says, “Please don’t leave me / I’ll always need more / Please leave open your most quiet door,” holding a plea. “Need more” suggests the fact that nothing she has is enough to hold down and secure the relationship, while “Your most quiet door” implies the fact that there is a small opening. Even if Janie is leaving, Ethel hopes and wishes there’s a way back in or a way to reconnect, not wanting Janie to fully shut her out.
Within the rest of the album, Janie is not mentioned again; however, the lyric, “You’ll keep changing / I will stay the same,” shows the fact that Janie will continue to grow and evolve through their teenage years while Ethel expects her not to change or at least fears she won’t have the chance to.
The introduction of Willoughby’s character begins in track two with “Willoughby’s Theme”, a soft instrumental song, introducing the emotional tone of the album. The title holds the fact of Willoughby being a “theme,” implying he is mythologized in Ethel’s mind. He is central, not just a person, but a symbol. While there is no lyrical affirmation of love, it holds a sort of aching atmosphere feeling like a wistful and ambient memory. Giving the early sign of how the story has been done, it continues to be told from the wreckage. It prepares us for an album not about romance, but about clinging to love in the ruins.
Track three begins with Holly Reddick, a classmate of Ethel’s, who embodies the stereotype of being “perfect,” but also being someone who carries a reputation in the town with rumors and judgments going around about her. In the song “F**k Me Eyes,” Ethel views Holly with envy and judgment while also holding empathy due to her family life. Her jealousy revolves around the love she holds for Willoughby, as Holly begins to hang around him more. She fears the loss of Willoughby, assuming that he is attracted to her, due to the stereotype of “everyone being in love with her.” She begins to compare herself to Holly, seeing how she embodies traits or attention that Ethel feels she lacks. Specifically, viewing her as more socially accepted and freely herself, unlike Ethel.
It musically veers toward synth-pop, evoking the dizzying rush of teenage attraction, confusion and the collision of beauty with decay. The lyric of “she really gets around town in her old Cadillac / In her mom’s jeans that she cut to really show off her a**,” sketches a vivid image of Holly, a girl living large, taking up space while flaunting confidence, yet with a sense of being observed, judged and envied, showing in Ethel’s gaze. It highlights the divide between who Holly is and how Ethel feels she is positioned.
“I’ll never blame her, I kind of hate her / I’ll never be that kind of angel / I’ll never be that kind of angel,” located in the outro of the song, captures the contradiction at the heart of the song. Having not only simultaneous envy, but also empathy that Ethel feels towards Holly. “I’ll never blame her” shows that she knows that Holly holds no fault for Ethel’s pain; however, she still “kind of hates her.” The repeated “I’ll never be” becomes a mantra of resignation, as Ethel begins to accept she’ll never fit the image of purity of perfection that society expects. It’s a quiet self-condemnation and acknowledgment of her outsider identity.
The lead single of the album, which came out early on June 4, 2025, is named Nettles. This fourth track captures a bittersweet moment in the narrative, where the early phase of the relationship between Ethel and Willoughby Tucker begins, with hope, longing and fear intermingling. The imagery of the song leans heavily on nature, greenery and nettles, positioning the relationship as both delicate and prickly, beautiful but capable of hurting. In the broader story arc, this is the moment when young love glows before the shadow creeps in.
In the album’s concept, we know that this romance is doomed; therefore, “Nettles” has retrospectively a kind of tragic awareness built into it. Ethel knows more than she says, as she writes of the dreams, but the dream contains the seed of loss. The lyrics “to love me is to suffer me” reflects that tension, as love can be both a refuge and a hazard. The track becomes a key emotional hinge, the before in a sad story whose after we already know.
“‘Cause baby, I’ve never seen brown eyes look so blue / Tell me all the time not to worry / And think of all the time I’ll have with you.”
This lyric in the second chorus underscores the innocence and awestruck gaze of first love, noticing small transformations. The request to “Tell me all the time not to worry” holds the fear in its heart, even while everything seems fully promised.
The fifth track, Willoughby’s Interlude, is an instrumental piece. According to the album lore, it functions as an ambient break, showcasing droning textures, quiet keys and a sense of time passing. In the story arc, it acts as a moment of reflection or transition. After the burgeoning love in “Nettles,” this interlude suggests a calm before the storm or the passage of youthful days into something darker. It allows the listener space to sense the emotional weight and musical atmosphere without lyrical signposts.
As part of the concept, it also underscores that not everything in this story is spoken. The interlude invites the listener to inhabit the world of characters, Ethel and Willoughby, outside of dialogue, including the sounds of the south, of time ticking and the innocence of fading. It reinforces the album’s structural ambition, which is to weave a story through both voice and silence, lyric and absence.
“Dust Bowl” returns to the lyrical dimension, exploring the deeper emotional terrain of Ethel and Willoughby’s relationship as it begins to strain under external pressures. This sixth track speaks of Ethel wanting to hold onto a moment of intimacy, “Watching, hoping the wind blows slowly / So I can keep you, a moment,” while simultaneously acknowledging fear of infidelity. The song evokes the metaphor of a dust bowl, dry, barren, wind-blown and a place where nothing grows easily. This symbolizes their love as imperfect and exposed to the elements.
In the large narrative, this is where the romance with Willoughby becomes more fraught, the innocence is waning and the realisation that love might not shield them from the possibility of hurt that creeps in. The “dust” of the title suggests what remains after the wind passes: detritus, memory and longing. Ethel begins to see that love doesn’t end the story; it might start something, but it doesn’t guarantee survival. The song deepens the theme of the doomed youth of young lovers against the climate, literal and metaphorical, of the Southern world.
Continuing through the album, the seventh track opens to “A Knock At The Door.” This song functions as a moment of intrusion in the narrative, with the “knock at the door” suggesting an arrival of consequence, whether guilt, revelation or confrontation. In the story of the album, Ethel and Willoughby live in a conservative southern world; the door could open to judgment, the past catching up, or the moment of rupture when secrecy ends. The lyric shifts from internal states to external intrusion, as someone knocks, the safe space is broken and the love world collides with the real world.
Theoretically, this track signals a turning point where the protective bubble of youthful love is no longer enough, where the door opens and things change. It additionally frames the narrative for the final phases of the story, where the hope will meet reckoning and the romance will face consequences. The song, then, works as the hinge between the “we” of the lovers and the “they” of the world outside their room.
“Radio Towers” begins as the eighth track, showcasing itself as another instrumental piece of the album, concluding at a total of around five minutes. The album employs these instrumentals to build an atmosphere and signal shifts. In the story context, “Radio Towers” evokes communication, distance and signals crossing airwaves, perhaps symbolising the connection and disconnection between Ethel and Willoughby. This is between memory and presence, between desire and distance. It may represent the characters picking up each other or failing to, across the space of youth, change and looming separation.
Throughout the lore of Ethel Cain, it is known that a tornado comes to Shady Grove and the night of Ethel and Willoughby’s relationship concludes. Within the track, the faint sound of beeps is echoed throughout, sounding almost as if a heart monitor that can be found at the hospital. Never confirmed or denied, the beeps in the back remain a mystery; however, we know Ethel left Willoughby alone that night and only know of his disappearance, never a why or how.
Musically, it likely functions as an atmospheric collapse or build-up before the final phase of the story. In the broader arc, “Radio Towers” precedes “Tempest” and “Waco, Texas,” which are tracks that are darker, longer and carry the weight of tragedy. Therefore, in “Radio Towers” it may mark the threshold of the story, where the romance begins to get lost in transmission, the signal is fuzzy and the connection starts to fade.
“Tempest” is a long, emotionally dense song that lasts 10 minutes. This ninth track metaphorically summons storm, upheaval and the climax of everything that has been building. It transfers to the perspective of Willoughby Tucker as he reflects on their doomed relationship and his feelings of abandonment. In the story-world of the album, this track summarizes the emotional storm, with love buffeted by external forces, internal fractures and the knowledge that innocence is lost. The term “tempest” evokes Shakespearean magnitude, suggesting that the characters are caught in something larger than themselves.
Within the broader arc, this song sits near the album’s finale, right before the 15-minute “Waco, Texas.” So, “Tempest” is the penultimate blow, the emotional unraveling, the point of no return. Ethel and Willoughby’s story reaches the point where dreams give way to reality, where the romantic ideal cannot withstand the elements. It sets the stage to deliver the aftermath of fallout, memory and reckoning.
The album closer, “Waco, Texas,” serves as both the resolution and the memorial of the story. In the lore of this album, a prequel, “Waco, Texas” functions as a final reckoning, the end of the romance and the confrontation with the outside world. Perhaps dealing with death or the departure of memories is setting in. The title evokes the real-world setting of Waco, Texas, loaded with associations of tragedy, cults, etc, which amplifies the gravity and foreboding of the album’s narrative.
The quote “love is not enough in this world / But I still believe in Nebraska dreamin’” humanises Ethel’s reckoning as she realizes that love, no matter how intense or sincere, may simply not be enough to save them. The “Nebraska dreamin’” evokes the idea of escape, of hope beyond the suffocating environment she finds within herself. Relating to the song which started it all, “House in Nebraska” in the album, “Preacher’s Daughter.” In the narrative of “Waco, Texas,” where Ethel’s relationship with Willoughby is doomed, this lyric becomes a poignant admission. Even as she believes in something hopeful, she’s aware of the futility.
In terms of story structure, the tenth and final track becomes the epilogue or the elegy, with the love story having run its course; what remains is memory, landscape and ghost. Ethel’s teenage love with Willoughby is now part of her past. The ambient scope of the track allows time to stretch out, to contemplate everything before and after. It mirrors the album’s aim, to show the full arc of doomed love, from possibility to end.
