Nashville-based singer-songwriter corook and Olivia Barton have released their new song, “if i were a fish” today. Co-written with their girlfriend, Olivia, the track was originally posted to TikTok as a response to internet hate, and it received an incredible response with 11.1M views, 2M likes and 301K shares and counting. The track came together in the matter of ten minutes while corook was feeling emotion, insecure and out of place and has since garnered an outpour of love and support on social media. The duo quickly recorded a full version of the song, alongside a video, which can be heard below.
“I’m in a place in my adulthood where I am allowing myself to be the most me I can fathom being and I have never felt so out of place in my life,” shares corook. “Whether it be the genre of music I make to my gender identity, I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. As I was crying about this to my girlfriend, Olivia Barton, she said ‘let’s make a song to feel better and we should make it as weird as possible.’ The first thing I said was ‘if I were fish I think people would appreciate all the things I am more.’ Thus became, if I were a fish. Writing that song with Olivia will go down as one of my favorite memories with her because I’d never felt more seen and loved by another human in my life. I guess it makes sense that the video capturing that memory went viral.”
corook – pronounced ‘co-rook’ – kicked off their latest, more vulnerable musical era with recent releases, “i’m not doing well” and “CGI,” the latter of which was included within Billboard’s “10 Cool New Pop Songs” and “Queer Jams of the Week” roundups. Earlier this year, they celebrated their 28th birthday with their first single of 2023, “the dog” and its heartbreaking music video (co-starring corook and their actual girlfriend) streaming now HERE. The poignant track was met by applause from PAPER, which raved, “Channeling Phoebe Bridgers, corook finds anguish and heartbreak in the small details of a breakup.”
After spending much of last year on the road, including their first-ever live runs (supporting K.Flay and Jukebox the Ghost) as well as their debut festival performance at Bonnaroo (featured in Rolling Stone) – the rising musician recently joined Maddie Zahm as special guest on her sold-out “You Might Not Like Her” tour. This summer, corook will be playing at Nashville PRIDE on June 25th. Tickets are available HERE.