Indie rock singer-songwriter Ethel Cain released a new song, “F**k Me Eyes,” on July 2. It serves as the second single for her upcoming album “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You,” which is set to arrive on Aug. 8.
Tailing her first single “Nettles” for her second studio album, Cain shifts from an intimate love song to a tribute to women who find themselves glorified or s**t-shamed to the point of objectification. While the music production echoes her extended play “Inbred,” Cain’s lyrics in “F**k Me Eyes” highlight emotional turmoil from witnessing the life of Lolitas — lost girls who find their lives subject to older men drawn to their beauty, innocence or mystique. Do we obsess over this kind of girl, in life and in art, because she is someone to emulate or someone to denounce?
On release day, Cain detailed in a radio interview with Zane Lowe that she wrote this song “about a girl” with feelings of “awe and fascination and jealousy.” The title and content of “F**k Me Eyes” harkens back to the ‘80s song “Bette Davis Eyes,” in which singer Kim Carnes narrates about another woman’s appearance and charm. Cain regarded “Bette Davis Eyes” as “the most beautiful song ever growing up” until she realized, “Oh, she’s not being nice to this girl. She’s calling her a s**t — so that’s crazy”
To identify the female artist of today who has addressed society’s obsession with Lolitas of the world the most, their precocious promiscuity in particular, we can point to Lana Del Rey and her tracks “Carmen,” “This Is What Makes Us Girls,” “Off To The Races” and “A&W.”
Cain’s “F**k Me Eyes” joins the discussion as it scrutinizes a young girl, vacillating between wistful admiration and bitter envy.
Listeners recognize her precocity as Cain divulges that she’s “Posted outside the liquor store ‘cause she’s too young to get in,” meaning the girl is not of drinking age yet. Further, the singer refers to her as a “pretty baby with the miles.” Miles implicates advanced progress in maturity, experience or hardship despite the degree of infantilization present.
Cain’s lyrics develop from indirect criticism like “She really gets around town” to a more direct tone in “She’s no good at raising children, but she’s good at raising Hell.” Eventually, Cain glorifies this girl while also pitying herself in the line, “I’ll never blame her, I kinda hate her / I’ll never be that kind of angel.” Cain manages to snark on this girl’s mischief and sexuality, and then mourn how she herself lacks such seduction.
Cain’s critiques delves more specifically into the girl’s irreverent lifestyle by mixing in references to God: “She goes to the church straight from the clubs, wearing her hair up to God.” Again, whether Cain wishes to assume such behavior herself or condemns it is ambiguous.
Whether from a place of sourness or matured sympathy, Cain notes the depressing aspects of existing as a desirable girl: “They all wanna take her out, but no one ever wants to take her home.” Past the observation, Cain also continues a subtle strand from “no good at raising children” to emphasize that this girl doesn’t suit domestic settings whatsoever. To compound this, Cain shares, “When she leaves, they never see her wiping her f**k me eyes.” The girl lives in solitude if men only desire to be with her temporarily, rather than to be there for her indefinitely.
Throughout the song, Cain repeats, “She’s scared of nothing but the passenger’s side / Of some old man’s truck in a dark parking lot.” No longer does Cain sound embittered, envious or admiring of the magnetism that the girl emits and carries. If unaware of it, she would never have the mind to fear male entrapment, specifically by one much older. Lolitas are cultural icons, objects of attraction, but eventually victims pushed into a corner. That said, Lolitas most likely come to know that they are Lolitas.
To enhance this complex position between envy and wonder, Cain stated in the interview with Lowe that she wanted the production “to get bigger and bigger until” listeners became “kind of lost in it.” This crescendo may reflect the mental growth that occurs when one evolves from envying this girl to sympathizing for her struggle.
The six-minute song begins with a rather uplifting tempo, each rhyme building momentum one after the other. In said interview, Cain stated that she produced the track with stronger drums before she “sent it to her good friend Matthias,” who “recorded these crazy synth-pops for it.” The two combine to take the listener on a roller-coaster that peaks at Cain’s belting in the second chorus, before gradually circling back to the first lyric, “She really gets around town” — this time with an air of sorrow.
Because Cain originally wrote “F**k Me Eyes” for her 2021 extended play “Inbred,” she stated that she considers the track the “kind of the swan song” of “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You.” Whether that means Cain is done writing about the Lolita archetype, or if she will depart from this production style for good remains unclear until the album’s release on Aug. 8.
Carmen Lin is an Arts & Entertainment Intern for the summer 2025 quarter. She can be reached at carmnml@uci.edu.
Edited by June Min and Joshua Gonzales
