Elihu Okay Embraces Vulnerability on “Cop Out”

“I would give anything I have, baby, just to make this work/It’s so cold in New York City/but I hold you like the summer,” sings Elihu Okay on the brutally honest “Cop Out.” Elihu’s latest release, “Cop Out” is a fun exploration of sound, balancing a nearly Gec-ian use of autotune with the traditional bopping guitar breakdowns of alt-rock ballads.

In Elihu’s words, the song is “unambiguous in a way that maybe I should feel embarrassed about.” Embracing this vulnerability, he crafts a transparent tale of love and desperation. The lover at the end of the track is immensely powerful, eliciting an almost alien level of affection–affection that he feels for “Cop Out” itself–admitting that, “Every song before this feels inadequate/Everyone before you feels like practice.”

The track shifts on its toes from lo-fi and hi-fi sounds, joining together into a unique, pop-punk-adjacent sound that tactfully blends Elihu Okay’s gentle vocals with a choir of strings and dramatic drums.

“Cop Out” is both an ode to a lover and music. As easily as Elihu admits to his all-encompassing love for his subject, he concedes to the necessity of the song itself: “I’ve been going through the motions my whole life now/Any song but this would be a cop out.”