âItâs no real pleasure in life,â says a man known as The Misfit whoâs just killed a Christian family in Flannery OâConnorâs short story, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The man, a famous escaped convict, calls himself The Misfit because he canât see what heâs done to be punished as heâs been. âDoes it seem right to you, lady,â he asks the pious grandmother, âthat one is punished a heap and another ainât punished at all?â The woman calls to Jesus; the Misfit shoots her in the chest.
I like to borrow OâConnorâs term âChrist-hauntedâ to describe the music of Ethel Cain, the stage name of Hayden Anhedönia, who is often called a pop star, though you wouldnât know that from her songs. Besides âAmerican Teenager,â an âanti-patriotism fake pop songâ that found its way to Barack Obamaâs Best of 2022 playlist, her songs are doomed and dirge-like, preoccupied by fate. âI am punished by love,â Cain sings plainly on âPunish,â the first single from her forthcoming project, Perverts, which, at over nearly seven minutes, invokes angels and murderers, channeling the piano drone of Ruins-era Grouper and Midwifeâs doleful so-described âheaven metal.â
âWords mean nothing anymore,â Cain wrote recently in a Tumblr post sheâs since deleted. The post identified a crisis of sincerity, an unwillingness to earnestly engage with art without using the language of irony and memes. If certain moments on Preacherâs Daughter seemed to mesmerize the mainstream, âPunishâ is Anhedönia embodying her nameâan almost cruelly gorgeous word for the inability to feel pleasure, a word that seems to spite you for how good it feels to say.