Better to Each Other (Expanded Edition for Freaks)
Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Cooper Casale is a poet and musician currently living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His poems and essays have appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, The American Journal of Poetry, New South Journal, Three Rooms Press, Chiron Review, and DMQ Review. His second album, The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Home, was released on tape by UK tape label, The Clap, in 2019.
Better to Each Other is Cooper Casale’s fourth album. It’s a companion piece to a still unpublished book of poems called Wanting to Die, Wanting to Live. The lyrics of this album are all sung passages from that book. The book and the album both ask the listener to consider: what happens to people who want to die when they fall in love? Do they stop wanting to die? What happens if that love stops, or moves away? Is wanting to die all that different from living, from getting up in the morning and going to work?
On one song, Cooper sings: “Next time I’ll do it better. I think I’ll fall in love.” But there is no next time. On the final track, he recites: “Just because I want to die doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” These are the love songs made for whatever love looks like after so much terror.
———
From Wanting to Die, Wanting to Live:
“And we laugh because You’re so dramatic, because You’re not gonna die. We both know You have to live. We laugh because we know other people die from what You have. Other people always die, but we won’t. We’ll live forever. I love You, and we’ll live forever. God dies. God dies when he doesn’t know what to say. Don’t talk to him. He’ll die.
Every bite is a bite too much. Some people kill to bite down on bread. Some people kill to live. Some live to die. This is how I remember how to breathe.
There’s nothing much to say.
I still Want to Die. I still love You. All the things that used to hurt me still do. I still say the same apologies before bed.
Everybody prays. Everybody goes to church. When I write, I’m saying prayers. When I’m saying prayers, I’m saying sorry. When I’m saying sorry, I Want to Live.
And that’s where I didn’t die. That’s where I don’t die.
That’s where I wake up. I wake up every morning.
And I watch George Lopez and start to cry. On his way to pour cornflakes into his favorite fruity pebbles bowl, Dad finds me crying.
I want to tell him there. I want to tell him I Want to Die. But I don’t. I never once stopped living. All that time I was alive. I am alive. I’ll never die.
So I run it all back again. I leave all the lights on in the kitchen all the time. Everything always. Life goes on. Death denied.
Please don’t die. Forget about it.”
credits
released July 9, 2021
All songs written and performed by Cooper Casale, except "Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America" originally by the 1975.
Cover art by Esa Serog.
Dedicated to Olivia McClure. You make me want to live.
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