‘Waco, Texas’: Ethel Cain’s true lyrical masterpiece
Last year, Ethel Cain ended Ethel Cain.
With the release of Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, the storyline Hayden Anhedönia began telling with Preacher’s Daughter came to a close.
But that does not necessarily mean the wider world of Ethel Cain is over. In interviews, Anhedönia has hinted at wanting to explore the entire family tree of the figure she’s been possessing, suggesting that more is to come, perhaps about her grandmother or father. But as Preacher’s Daughter concluded with the character of Cain dying, the finale of her follow-up prequel record seemingly was the end of the line for the daughter’s tale.
However, there is still so much to consider and unpack. On Preacher’s Daughter, we meet a heartbroken Cain with the assumption being that her boyfriend, discussed on ‘House In Nebraska’, is dead, implied in lyrics like “Praying straight to God that maybe you’ll come back around”. But the lyrics are vague; they could be pleas to God, or pleas direct to a partner who left.
One thing that is certain is that Anhedönia knows exactly where the story is headed. Alongside the albums, she has revealed that she has been working on a novelisation of the tale, even sharing pages that hint at a world far wider and more complex than the records alone suggest, perhaps more complex than an album could ever fully capture. But on ‘Waco, Texas’, the closing track of Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You and the final words we hear from Cain, it is that very complexity and nuance that make the song so beautiful, and Anhedönia’s storytelling so ingenious.
In the tale of the album, Cain is in love with her boyfriend to an overwhelming degree, imagining their lives together, moving through fantasies of how, once they’re older and together, everything will fall into place. But in the background, and in the songs in which Tucker is the narrator, it’s suggested that it will never be sunshine and roses as long as Cain refuses to truly look at the reality of their circumstances. Neglecting the support that Tucker needs as she’s lost to daydreams, in the end, he disappears.
While so much of the rest of the album is glossed over with a sort of denial, ‘Waco, Texas’ is crystal clear and viscerally so. It feels like exactly what it is in this story, a quiet moment of reflection or admittance, like the conversation all of us end up having with ourselves following a breakup, even if we’d never utter the realisations to anyone else.
“You were there looking for me but I / I was gone, turned my back for a moment and / You had fallen apart,” Cain sings as the first admittance that she perhaps caused her own heartache, cursing herself, “Goddammit, I did it to myself in hindsight”.
But it’s not so simple as Cain flagellating herself. In the back and forth of her mind in this song, Anhedönia manages to capture the conflict of moments of clarity versus a push back, singing, “I loved you when it hurt inside to”, or “You know I’d do anything for you / You know it’s true, ’cause I’ve said it to you”, still certain that she loved Tucker enough to save him.
That isn’t always enough, though, which is the kicker of the song. Seemingly taking a line from Twin Peaks, the gut punch of the track comes in the breakdown as Cain practically whispers, “I’ve been picking names for our children, You’ve been wondering how you’re gonna feed them,” landing on the conclusion that “love is not enough in this world”.
In this one line, Anhedönia not only wraps up the story of this record in a neat sentiment but sets up the entire story of Preacher’s Daughter. Suddenly, the entire Ethel Cain character has context. The line, “I still believe in Nebraska dreaming”, allows the listener to suddenly understand the naive, desperate heartache that begins the next chapter, but also her guilt and jaded nature that seems to push the character into recklessness.
Though Cain is still trying to cling to love in this song, all of it is tainted. “To be known the way you should is to put yourself through hell,” she says as a damning sentiment. As the final line on this entire album, she admits, “I can wait if I want / But it’ll never be good enough like I / Want to believe it is”, knowing that her life will never be the same and never be as innocent, setting the stage for the sin and suffering the character would get into next.
Moving through so many feelings, tying up so many loose ends, bottling so much nuance and character development, ‘Waco, Texas’ is a 15-minute masterpiece, and, I’d argue, Anhedönia’s most impressive songwriting.
