Corook: “My dad used to say, ‘If you practiced guitar as much as you practice Guitar Hero, you’d be pretty good.’ I was like, ‘Fine, I’ll do that then!’”

Why is everybody on the internet so mean? Nashville-based songwriter Corook ponders this relatable question in 2023’s unlikeliest hit, If I Were A Fish – a song bashed out in 10 minutes to help them process online bullying.

Corook explains how the song’s title originated with their partner, Olivia Barton. “I told Olivia, ‘Play something that you’ve never played on an instrument that you don’t know. She kept hitting the same two notes on my little Yamaha synth. Then she sang, ‘If I were a fish…’ I said, ‘I love that! Let’s start there.’ 

Corook kept Olivia’s two-note groove when they picked up the guitar, which is why the acoustic guitar plays only powerchords.

The 49-second TikTok was all they had written, but the reaction was so huge it was clear that If I Were A Fish needed to be a full song. This posed a problem: how could they maintain the same off-the-cuff charm with the pressure of millions of listeners? “We wrote the rest of it just doing mundane things, like driving around or washing dishes,” explains Corook. “We were trying to get it out in a really natural way because that’s how the song came out initially.”

The guitar on If I Were A Fish is a PRS P20E, a parlor-sized acoustic. “I bought it so I could make a rubber bridge guitar out of it. You can hear it’s kind of dead. I have a piece of rubber where the bridge is and I put flatwound strings on it. Rubber bridge guitars are really popular in the songwriting community right now. It makes it really percussive, which is fun to work with.”

Fortunately, Corook is certain to avoid one-hit wonder status thanks to their long experience of writing. “My dad used to say, ‘If you practiced guitar as much as you practice Guitar Hero, you’d be pretty good.’ I was like, ‘Fine, I’ll do that then!’ My dad listened to Ani DiFranco and I got my desire to write songs from listening to her. I just fell in love with songwriting, and guitar happened to be how I fell in love with it.”

Corook’s singles to date, including 2022’s viral It’s OK!, are compiled on Best of Corook (So Far), and they have a slew of new material lined up alongside headline shows in New York and LA. They have no plans to change how they work, though: “Whenever I think about what people want from me, I remember what the fish song is about: I am what I am, and I want to continue to be that.”

• Best of Corook (So Far) is out now via Atlantic.