Eve’s Paradise Lost

By Ryleigh Simmons

What I Did And Why?

For my project, I was a little unsure of what I wanted to do at first. I thought I wanted to work with Boy My Greatness because I really enjoyed that play, and it was one of the easiest texts to understand. However, after listening to “Labour” by Paris Paloma in the car and having our fun discussion about “MONTERO” by Lil Nas X in class, I was thinking a lot about Eve and her treatment in Paradise Lost. 

Therefore, I decided I wanted to challenge myself to work with Paradise Lost, and I thought the best way to keep my interest was by working with music since that was the reason I chose this piece in the first place. However, when I first started the playlist, I was just going to add any song that mentions or is about Paradise Lost, but I quickly shot that idea down once I figured out how many songs about Paradise Lost there are. Because I felt like my idea was too broad, I decided that I wanted to focus more on Eve because I thought her character was more intriguing and had more of an arc compared to the others. 

Once I came to a decision on making my playlist about Eve, I also tried to come up with some specific themes I wanted my playlist to follow. Which is why when you look through my analysis and reasoning behind why I included each song, you will notice most of them have themes of guilt, innocence, sin, temptation, unjust punishment, critiquing misogyny, and pleasure. Essentially, I tried to add songs that addressed Eve’s side of the story and how you can read Eve’s character in many different ways. 

Finally, to do this, I utilized Spotify and YouTube to find songs. First, I started off searching keywords like Eve and The Garden of Eden to get a starting point. Once I had a few songs from that method, I switched to looking at some of the artists I am familiar with, along with artists that are suggested as being similar to them. This took a long time, and I read a lot of lyrics, but I think I was able to make a decent list. Below are all of my songs and why they are included on my playlist, along with a short conclusion about why I thought my analysis is important at the very end.

Playlist Analysis

1. “Eve & Paradise Lost” – Bastille 

I thought this song was incredibly interesting, and I chose to add it because of the way it gives Eve a voice, talks about how the blame was pushed onto her, and highlights how her punishment was unfair compared to Adam’s. 

This song is a short rewrite of the typical Adam and Eve story, but told from Eve’s perspective. Throughout the lyrics, Eve is reminding Adam that they both ate the apple, yet she is the only one who faces multiple harsh consequences. For example, she states, “Who’d have known that I’d be carrying our babies and our sins?” meaning that since eating that fruit, she has had to carry both the blame for their sin and now has to experience this new sensation of childbirth. Further in the song, Eve talks more about the experience of childbirth and how lonely and painful it is. She has no “mother, sister, or friend” to help her through the pain. All she had was a man who would never understand what she was going through. 

The main chorus of the song is also interesting because it is all about how, when Eve was created, she was told she was made for Adam. She states, “I love you so, but still, it’s hard to get my head around it / When they say I was made from you / I bite my tongue, and hope my heart can get its head around.” She loves Adam because he is all she has known and because she has been told she has to love Adam, but her heart is not in it, yet, because she didn’t build this relationship on her own.

To get a better grasp of how unfairly Eve was treated after eating the forbidden fruit, I did a little research on what happened after Adam and Eve ate the fruit. First of all, it is seen in Paradise Lost that Adam puts the blame on Eve for him eating the fruit. He states, “This Woman whom thou mad’st to be my help, / And gav’st me as thy perfet gift, so good, / So fit, so acceptable, so Divine, / That from her hand I could suspect no ill, / And what she did, whatever in it self, / Her doing seem’d to justifie the deed; / Shee gave me of the Tree, and I did eate”(Milton,137-143). He expresses that he trusted Eve, so he had no reason to believe any ill intent from eating the fruit; therefore, it is her fault that he ate it. He takes no accountability for his actions when he had his own choice, which the song seems to highlight by repeating the lyrics “I will always take the fall for us / But we both ate the fruit.”  

Also, while doing research about the punishment both Adam and Eve faced, I definitely saw what the song meant by “I got this gut feeling that somehow only I will pay for it.” Of course, both of them did pay in some way. They both were kicked out of the Garden, developed a sense of shame, and lost access to the tree of eternal life, but their individual punishments were not at all equal. For his sin, Adam was forced to work hard all his life and face the fact that the ground was now cursed to grow both bad and good plants (“Adam and Eve’s Disobedience to God: 8 Consequences”). On the other hand, Eve was now cursed, along with all other women, with painful childbirth. This is also reflected by the quote “By thy Conception; Children thou shalt bring / In sorrow forth, and to thy Husbands will / Thine shall submit, hee over thee shall rules” (194-6). This quote also shows that Eve was forced to submit to Adam even though both committed the sin (Morse). Overall, I thought this song was really important to add to Eve’s playlist because it makes me, and hopefully others who listen to it think about what inequality Eve had to face after eating the forbidden fruit. 

2. “Labour” – Paris Paloma

Although this song does not make any explicit references to Eve or Paradise Lost, the song is about how women are forced into roles that are exhausting and for the benefit of others and not themselves. The line “Just an appendage, live to attend him” was one of the main reasons I included this song because of the creation myth that Eve was made from Adam’s rib to be his companion; thus, in this myth, she is not a person, but really an attachment to Adam. Moreover, the “live to attend him” line further points out the misogynistic belief that women live to attend men. Overall, the song points out how women are forced to “work” for men because of the way society is set up. 

3. “Gods & Monsters” – Lana Del Rey

This song is mostly filler, but I think it does have some relation to Eve. This song discusses how the singer was innocent before they joined Hollywood (the land of Gods and Monsters), only to lose it through the manipulation of the elite. I think this is relatable to Eve because she is described as extremely innocent (she has no knowledge, wants, or needs yet) until she is manipulated by Lucifer into eating the apple. Also, if we go off some of the theories we discussed in class, it is also possible she was manipulated by God into eating the apple. Thus, the elites have caused Eve to lose her innocence.

4. “Eve, Psyche & Bluebeard’s Wife” – LE SSERFIM

This was a random song I found on YouTube, and although it might not fit the vibes of the rest of the playlist, it does follow the same themes. The song is about three different female characters who were forbidden from doing something and did it anyway. This song emphasizes that women should break free of societal norms, using the line “I wish for what’s forbidden.”  

5. “The Fruits” – Paris Paloma 

The Fruits is a song that uses the Garden of Eden imagery as a way to critique misogyny, sin, and the shaming of female sexuality. Although there are many interpertation of this song and the story they are trying to tell one of the ones I found the most compelling was about a toxic relationship between a man and a young women who was or is being groomed (Prudent-Employer-582). The man is constantly praising the women for being “pure.” Until eventually the man starts to get angrier through the lyrics “Naked in that garden” and “You’re faithless, for you pitched me against your holy father.” The man is starting to blame her for their relationship and the sins he is committing by being in this relationship. 

Other then the blatant imagery and references to the story of Adam and Eve I thought this analysis had a lot of similarities to Eve’s story. Most of the relationships Eve has had with men have all been bad, toxic, or forced upon her. Moreover, when we look at her relationship with Adam, Eve is blamed by him for his fall. He tells God that she is the reason he committed the sin, essentially trying to keep his innocents and have Eve be the one who is at fault for everything. Thus, demonstrating a similarity between Adam and the man in the song both of whom refuse to take accountability for their sins and instead blame it on the women in their lives. 

6. “The Yawning Grave” – Lord Huron 

I thought this song gave the tone of God talking to Eve about her sin. He told her that eating the apple was forbidden and that it could cause bad things in the future. “The reckoning begins” is a good line for Paradise Lost because eating that apple is the start of everything. 

7. “The Garden” – The Crane Wives 

The two main lines that made me include this song, other than the fact that it’s called The Garden, are “My darling, the devil knows my name” and “Won’t you cut down that apple tree for me.” I thought of these lines as coming from Eve about her interaction with Lucifer and how he was haunting her dreams before she even met him in person. Also, the song’s main themes are guilt and dealing with the consequences of your actions, which I think is highly related to Eve and Paradise Lost. 

8. “Ribs” – The Crane Wives 

This song was included on the playlist because of the reference to Eve’s creation. However, I also think that has some relation to Eve in relation to the idea that God made Adam rule over Eve. This song uses these ideas and comes up with a story about an older woman speaking to a younger girl and trying to warn her. The woman talks about how she was not given a “rib” or the protection that comes with it from anyone, and instead was forced to face things on her own. And that, although her organs may be ugly, she was able to build her own defences and make the choice to not be afraid because she could protect herself. She is telling the little girl to be her own woman and not to let anyone have control over her by giving her their “rib.” This song encourages young women to claim their autonomy by showing how Eve was unable to claim her own. 

9. “Garden of Eden” – Lady Gaga

Here, the singer represents Lucifer, who is tempting Eve into sin. In this case, the singer is tempting the other person into club life, which typically involves drinking and drugs. 

10. “Daughter of Eve” – Banshee 

In this song, Banshee writes about how a “daughter of Eve” chooses not to bow before a man because Eve was the first woman to choose knowledge and wisdom over obedience. I chose to add this song because I think it is a good perspective to have when talking about Eve. There are definitely readings of Eve being manipulated into eating the apple, but I feel like it can also be read as her taking some autonomy back.  

11. “Heathens” – AURORA

In this song, the singer makes references to both Eve and Persephone. Using these references, the singer encourages women to break free from social constraints and choose free will, just like how Eve ate the apple for wisdom. 

12. “From Eden” – Hozier 

In From Eden the singer takes on the perspective of the devil, who disguised themselves as a snake to trick Eve into eating the apple. Throughout the song, the singer talks about Eve and their perspective of her. They call her both “loansome” and “wholesome,” which relates to the idea of Eve’s innocence at the beginning of Paradise Lost. However, the devil also sees himself in Eve, stating, “Honey, you’re familiar like my mirror years ago/Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword/Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know.” This introduces a connection between the devil and Ev,e with them both starting out as innocent and then falling, which I thought was an interesting perspective to add to the playlist. 

13. “Guilty Pleasure” – Chappell Roan 

This is another song that doesn’t explicitly reference Eve; however, I thought the topic of the song matched with Eve’s story. In the song, the singer, whom I viewed as Eve, is singing about a toxic but also addictive relationship. There is also a factor that “guilty pleasure” might refer to the singer’s sexuality, and how, even though what this person is feeling might be considered shameful, it makes them feel good. This can relate to Eve because she had no concept of sexuality before eating the apple, but she chose to eat the apple even though it was “wrong” because she wanted to.  

14. “Man’s World” – MARINA

MARINA has a lot of songs that focus on women’s power and calling out misogyny, but I chose this one specifically because of the pattern it presents throughout society. In the song, it starts off talking about the witch trials (“Burnt me at the stake, you thought I was a witch”) as the beginning of people, specifically women, who were deemed abnormal, being singled out or discriminated against (“Man’s World”). However, I think there is an opportunity to compare this pattern to Eve. When Lucifer came to the Garden of Eden, he chose to tempt Eve rather than Adam, which may have been its own form of misogyny. Then most of the blame was shifted onto Eve for something both Adam and Eve did. This could be an example of how Eve was singled out because she was arguably the only woman surrounded by Men. All of the Men in Paradise Lost (God, Adam, and Lucifer) had control over her and treated her unjustly when technically both Adam and Eve committed the same sin. 

I also just really loved the line “Maybe it is time, time you comprehend / The world that you live in ain’t the same one as them / So don’t punish me for not being a man.” These lyrics go along with what I was saying above about how Eve was punished more because she was a woman. However, it also highlights how Adam doesn’t and won’t understand Eve, and that the world, or in this case, the Garden of Eden, was made for Adam but not for Eve. 

15. “Purge the Poison” – MARINA

This song has more of a loose connection to Eve, but I wanted to add it because it calls out the patriarchy and misogyny. I mean, it calls out way more than that, but those were the main reasons I put it on the playlist. It is also written from the point of view of Mother Nature, which I just thought fit to be with Eve. 

16. “I’m Not Hungry Anymore” – MARINA

In this song, MARINA uses “I’m not hungry anymore” to say she no longer needs fake love or external validation. She has “changed her mind” and is on her way to finding independence from the person she thought she needed. I thought this fit Eve really well because, even though she and Adam do end up together, she kind of found a little bit of her independence by eating the apple. It was one of her first choices that was sort of her own, if you don’t count Lucifer’s interference. 

Why Does My Response Matter?

A big topic in our class is: how can we make the things we learn accessible to people who may not have the same opportunities as we do? This is what I hope to accomplish with my project. Paradise Lost is not the most accessible text out there, yet so much of our media is built around it. Thus, I wanted to make this playlist to help me understand parts of the story and to help others understand who may not be able to use the text. By making this playlist, people are able to interact with the characters and concepts of Paradise Lost in a more modern way. I’m hoping that with this playlist, people will feel a deeper connection to Paradise Lost and will be inspired to look more into the epic. 

Also, more than simply looking at the basics of what Paradise Lost is, I wanted to take it to the next level and develop an analysis of Eve. I felt like my analysis could help people understand how to analyse a text on a deeper level. For example, someone may read a book and then listen to Spotify, and they can now relate the songs they are listening to to the book they read. Thus, by doing this, they are able to connect more deeply with the media they consume, which is especially important given the decline in media literacy and reading comprehension today.

Works Cited

“Adam and Eve’s Disobedience to God: 8 Consequences.” Heroes Bible Trivia, 28 Mar. 2023, www.heroesbibletrivia.org/en/adam-and-eve-disobedience-to-god/. 

“Man’s World.” Marina and the Diamonds Wiki, Fandom, Inc., 2019, marinaandthediamonds.fandom.com/wiki/Man%27s_World. 

Morse, Holly. “Eve’s Punishment .” Thevcs.org, 2018, thevcs.org/eves-punishment. 

Prudent-Employer-582, “The Fruits and Its Complexities.” Reddit, 2024,  https://www.reddit.com/r/ParisPaloma/comments/1ey4d1n/the_fruits_and_its_complexities/