“Poacher’s Pride” by Nicole Dollanganger

“Poacher’s Pride” is notable lyrically due to the vocalist’s assertion that she ‘shot an angel with her father’s rifle’. But we also find the word poacher in the title, which is basically a term applied to hunters, particularly of the illegal variety. So it has been understood by some analysts that what Nicole is actually speaking to is having killed an animal, such as a dove. That notion is verified in the first verse when she also reveals that she took it to “taxidermy” and eventually ‘hung it on her wall’.

Later on, the third verse implies that the vocalist is suffering from hunter’s remorse. This is a situation where a hunter feels guilty for taking the creature’s life. Hunter’s remorse often does sometimes happen to to young hunters (like Nicole).

But then in the outro, the songstress rather puts forth she has no emotional response whatsoever to ‘shooting an angel’. She views this lack of sympathy as being the result of the “sickness of poacher’s pride”. This does not appear to be a canonical condition but rather points to the general disposition of not giving a damn about the life of animals.

Religious References

Besides the reference to angels, there are also other religious references to be had in this piece. Even “Jesus Christ” himself is namedropped in the second verse. 

Some analysts have understood this as Dollanganger likening animals who are killed for sport to the unfair execution of said figure. But in any event, even though we know that the vocalist did not literally ‘shoot an angel’, such references still grant this song a spiritual dimension.

Who is Nicole Dollanganger?

Nicole is a singer from Canada, being 30 years old as of the writing of this post. She has actually been in the game since the early 2010s. Between 2012 and 2022, she dropped a prolific seven studio albums. However, by the looks of things, to this day she remains more or less akin to an indie artist.

“Poacher’s Pride”

“Poacher’s Pride” is from an album Dollanganger dropped in 2015 titled “Natural Born Losers”. It was the first song on its playlist. The project was sponsored by a label known as Eerie Organization. 

This particular track, which was dropped on 9 October 2015, stands as one of the most notable in her discography. That’s because in 2015, the late XXXTentacion (1998-2018) sampled it in a very-noticeable way onto a more-popular song he came out with titled “WingRiddenAngel“.

Nicole wrote and produced “Poacher’s Pride”. It is for this reason she also receives songwriting credits on X’s “WingRiddenAngel”.