Ethel Cain releases Fuck Me Eyes, an ode to reputation and longing

Ethel Cain has released a stunning new track called ‘Fuck Me Eyes’, a slow, swirling ode to envy, longing, and small-town myth-making. It’s the second single from her upcoming album Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, out on 8th August.

With soft shoegaze textures and woozy, synth-washed production, the song traces Cain’s fascination with a high school girl who seems to have everything – beauty, attention, and a reputation everyone gossips about but no one really understands. “The beautiful blonde who is just lonely and wants to be loved,” says Cain, “that all the adults condemn to each other, who ultimately is the girl everyone simultaneously can’t stand and wants to be.”

The track leans into that emotional tension: it’s sweet, haunted, and charged with adolescent ache. Cain’s vocal is low-key but devastating, letting the production bloom around it like heat rising off asphalt. “We’re meant to see her through Ethel’s eyes at 16,” she explains, “convinced this girl has caught her crush’s eye.”

It’s also the oldest track on the record – a demo Cain began five years ago, long before the rest of the album took shape. “As the story became more fleshed,” she adds, “I realised it had a more relevant place on the album than I originally thought.”

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‘Fuck Me Eyes’ follows previous single ‘Nettles’ and continues the album’s intimate focus on youth, anxiety and the blurry space between desire and identity. Cain cites ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ by Kim Carnes as an inspiration, and there’s something of that track’s bitter glamour here too. You can almost imagine it sountracking a late-night drive with tears in your throat, trying to work out if you want someone, want to be them, or just want to disappear.

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