Caroline Cobb: "Death, You Terrible Thing"

Caroline Cobb has been a singer-songwriter for over a decade and has more recently become an author with the release of her book Advent for Exiles. On this episode of the Deepest Cut, Cobb discusses the origins of her song “Death, You Terrible Thing,” reflecting on the loss of her father in the midst of a global pandemic and the way that both death and beauty arrived to meet her in unexpected ways.

And it’s that striving toward beauty that informs her work, to provide creative moments that interrupt with hope, with perspective, with companionship.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Deepest Cut, a podcast about the movement
from painful experiences to meaningful music. I'm your host, Matt Conner.
Death and beauty. She said their work is the same.

(00:22):
Or at least that's what stuck with me when I
was speaking with Caroline Cobb for this episode of The
Deepest Cut. I knew it would be marked by thoughtful
conversation that would likely lead to insightful moments. Such descriptions
all the hallmarks of her own work as a singer
songwriter for the last decade, and even more recently as
an author with the release of her book advent for exiles.

(00:44):
But back to the whole death and beauty thing. As
Caroline reflected on the loss of her father only a
few years ago and the way it led to her
new song, death, You Terrible Thing, she talked about the
ways in which she realized how we're blindsided by death.
We live our lives, we play out our routines, and
then we're interrupted by the darkness. The same thing she

(01:07):
said can happen with the light. It's that striving toward
beauty that informs her work to provide creative moments that
interrupt with hope or perspective or even companionship. For most
of her albums, that means exploring and illuminating the scriptural
story that's affected her so deeply. But sometimes there are

(01:27):
some songs that are too personal. They require a separate
EP release on occasion, and the songs she's decided to
feature on this episode fits that bill. On this episode
of The Deepest Cut, Caroline Cobb reflects on the loss
of her father in the midst of a global pandemic
and the way that both death and beauty arrived to
meet her in unexpected ways. Here, she dissects the song death,

(01:51):
You Terrible Thing, and opens up in a lovely conversation
with us on The Deepest Cut. We hope you enjoy it. Hello,
and welcome to the Deepest Cut. My name is Matt Conner,

(02:14):
and I'm your host, our guest for today. I'm just
so glad to be joined by Caroline Cobb. It's already
been a pleasure to share your company this morning before
the interview, but looking forward to this. We want to
introduce yourself. How are you doing today?

S2 (02:26):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Matt. I'm excited to be here.
And I was telling you, I love the concept behind
this podcast and really thankful that I get to share
about this song.

S1 (02:35):
Yeah, we're we're thrilled to have you. This song is
is so perfect for this. I'm very hopeful for this
conversation to yield something meaningful for the listener, and even
the context that gives the song even greater resonance than
it already does. But before we dive into the song
and we'll get there, I kind of wanted to begin.
You describe your own, like in in the literature around

(02:55):
your music that goes out, you know, your bio and things.
You describe your music as like storytelling albums.

S3 (03:02):
And.

S1 (03:03):
Like you could frame that any way that you want.
And I wanted to start there with, why choose that
phrase to describe what you do? What's the heart behind that?
And like, what does that mean? Like maybe I have
an idea, but what's your like what's your idea to
say that?

S2 (03:17):
Well, the backstory is that when I was about to
turn 30, I gave myself this goal to write a
song that was inspired by every single book of the
Bible in a year. And I realized that that was
a sweet spot for me, because I love God's Word
and seeing connections in God's Word. But I also loved
to write music. And so my hope in a lot

(03:38):
of the albums that I've put out is to tell
the story meaning like God's big story. And so just
to tell it from different angles and kind of turn
the diamond, if you will, and explore a different theme,
but hopefully do that in a really creative way that
is faithful to the text, but that isn't hokey or cheesy.
I hope, and so that's been something that on a

(03:59):
lot of my main like albums I've done. And so
those songs are very personal to me. But then sometimes
I'll have songs that don't quite fit that framework of
telling God's story in terms of like, this comes from
this story in the Bible of Adam and Eve or
something like that. And those are those really personal songs
about friendship, or in this case, the song we're going

(04:20):
to talk about today is about death. And my experience
with that. And it doesn't fit into that framework of
telling God's story. But I do think it's telling my
story and how God's story has really pressed in on
mine in a very personal way. And so it still
feels part of kind of my body of work. But

(04:41):
I usually put out some of these more personal songs
on an EP, and it's almost like, hey, do you
want to read my journal? You know, like this is
the person behind these larger concept albums, but again, it
all weaves together. I don't feel like the larger concept
albums lack personal nature. It's just kind of doing a
different thing.

S1 (05:00):
Yeah, I just wonder how that informed this. But you're
saying I kind of sneak these between other releases? Or
maybe sneak is not the right word, but, you know,
save room for special plates of only personal songs, right?

S2 (05:12):
Right. Yeah. So I've done about five or I've done
five full length albums that are these storytelling albums. So
the last one I did was from the Psalms, and
those were very personal too. But then these I've done
two EPs like this where they're super personal and this
is clearly about me and my life. And so I
just see what God has put on my heart and

(05:34):
what's burning a hole in my pocket and kind of
write both at the same time. And then when it's ready,
I'll put some a collection of songs out.

S1 (05:42):
The new EP came out this year, I guess. I
wonder when you put these out, these songs out? Is
there like given the difference in what you just said
about like, these are my scriptural story, regular album, like
long players. And then here's my EPs that are filled
with more personal things. Does that change your expectations for

(06:02):
those songs?

S2 (06:03):
Yeah, for sure. And this year was a super productive
year because I also put out my first book, and
it was an advent devotional book, and I put out
like an instrumental album from the Psalms. And so this
little EP kind of fit between those two. I put
it out this summer, and I just felt like I
used the phrase a lot, like burning a hole in

(06:24):
my pocket, like I had to get these songs out,
but I didn't. I knew that if someone listened and
they were struggling with anxiety or they they knew what
I meant when I was talking about death, that maybe
these songs would really deeply affect them. But I also
felt like zero expectation, you know, I was like, whether
no one listens or as many people listen to this

(06:45):
as they did to the Psalms record, it doesn't even matter.
I have to put these out and get them out
into the world. And I don't want to wait. You know,
I could have waited until 2025, but I just felt
like they were pressing in and I needed to get
them out. So I snuck it in with no expectation,
because I already had a lot coming out this year
and just didn't feel like I had the push in

(07:06):
me to really push it really hard. And so I
just let them come out into the world. And I've
been glad to hear how they've been resonating with people.

S1 (07:16):
By the way, do you think part of that, maybe
even a minor part of that, is a protectionist instinct?
That if these are more personal songs, maybe I don't
want to give them like the full push, as if
it's the only creative thing I have going on. Do
you think maybe that's at work in the background?

S2 (07:32):
That's a good question. I, I don't think so. I
think even putting them out into the world, the people
that listen to my songs will find them, you know?
And yeah, I kind of framed them as some of
the most vulnerable songs that I've ever written, so I'm
not afraid of it putting out into the world. But
I also you just get to take away the whole,
like what people want and you just get to say,

(07:54):
or commercial viability even. I don't usually think in those terms,
but just in general, like I don't know that these
are going to stream like are going to get on
a playlist and have a ton of streams, you know.
But I do know that if someone finds it, that
really needs to hear it, this is going to, you know,
hit in a deep level. So I don't I don't
feel like I was protecting in any way. But I

(08:16):
do get what you mean. But I think that at
the end of the day, I just enjoy the freedom
of having no expectations and knowing that I'm not aiming for,
you know, a lot of streams or anything like that
in this case, just want to share what's on my
heart and feel like I can't not share these songs.

S1 (08:34):
You even mentioned earlier. You said, you know, I want
to write these things without being hokey, so that like
that tension, that tension of wanting to be real. And
yet you do want to hold out hope because you
are hopeful. Right? Right. Right. There is an earnest, almost
naivety to. There is a childlike faith at work. And

(08:56):
yet there is the reality of the situation.

S3 (08:58):
Right? And earlier.

S1 (08:59):
When you said that, I wanted to talk about that
in light of this song, when you talk about that tension,
now you're talking about death. Can you talk about, like
walking that line with the subject matter and song like this?

S2 (09:11):
Yeah. So this song in particular, it's called death, You
terrible thing. So it's a pretty, pretty dramatic title. Um, uh,
so the chorus, that's the first line of the chorus,
and the story behind it is that I wrote it
right after my dad passed away, and I have this
distinct memory of, like, sitting on my bed. And I
felt very raw from seeing death up close. And I

(09:32):
can tell that story later if you want. But yeah,
I felt like there was this tension that I saw
death to be more terrible than I had before, but
at the same time, I saw Jesus and both his
resurrection and the fact that he, like, weeps with people.
The fact that he experienced death, just his humanity and

(09:55):
his experience with death. I saw that good news as
even more beautiful. So death became worse and then the
gospel became better. And so I think that sometimes those
tensions and actually I feel like I write about those
things a lot in my music is if you're not
willing to, like, sit in your sin and call it

(10:16):
what it is, then the gospel is not going to
be very beautiful to you. But if you are, then
it's going to make the gospel more beautiful. And so
there's a lot of that tension of let's just say
that we struggle, or let's just say that death is
a terrible enemy and it is not the way it's
supposed to be. But when we do that, we don't
have to stay there. We can also hold in tension

(10:37):
at the same time that if death is so terrible,
that means that God is so good that he would,
you know, resurrect us, and also that he was willing
to experience death. It just made the gospel taste sweeter.
And it made me really thankful for that story, that
it's true. You know.

S1 (10:53):
I love that lowering the floor and raising the ceiling
of that is that's a really beautiful idea of of
sitting lower, but then seeing greater in that way. By
the way, you referenced the title, it just it made
me laugh before our interview because I was even thinking of, like,
hearing that at Christian radio. Like hearing some DJ say,

(11:14):
all right, coming up in the next hour, we have
done a terrible thing, right? Like, do you even, like,
hesitate before that? Or are you like, man, I know
this already isn't is probably not going to be, you know,
on some sunny, you know.

S2 (11:26):
That's right. I mean, I know that it sounds very dramatic,
but then I've kind of come to terms with just
being a songwriter that it's, you know, we tend toward
drama sometimes as artists. And I think honestly just calling
it what it is. Like anyone that's experienced death up close,
I mean, not anyone, but I think most of us

(11:47):
have the feeling like that's just not how it's supposed
to be. And I know that part of the story
is that I picked up this book by Tish Harrison
Warren the week of my dad's funeral. I was playing
like I still had all these shows to play, so
I only canceled one show, and then I played one
worship set at a conference that Tish Harrison Warren was

(12:07):
speaking at. And she had, you know, books out in
the foyer. And I picked up her book, prayer in
the night and bought it just on a whim. And
can I read you this quote? Because I think this
kind of explains.

S1 (12:18):
Yeah, please. She's she's wonderful, by the way. We would
we would fully endorse, you know.

S2 (12:23):
Right. And I don't know her. I would love for
her to know that her book so deeply affected me.
So if anyone's listening and they know to share some more. Um,
so she says this. Yeah. She says one thing that
draws me to Christianity is that we are allowed to
hate death. I don't have to stoically accept it as
part of the circle of life. Death is an enemy.

(12:45):
And then later she says, the Christian faith never asks
us to be okay with death. If we sentimentalize death
and minimize its brutality, we end up often unwittingly belittling
the hope of resurrection. But God Himself entered fully into frailty,
lived in this world where things are decidedly not as
they should be, and face down the darkness of the grave.

(13:06):
Death is an enemy, but death is now an enemy defeated.
And so I think she really holds that tension well.
And just like she said, I think if we sentimentalized
death or minimize it or put sunshiny, you know, like
they might be tempted to on Christian radio, they might
want to avoid this topic. We like, she says, unwittingly

(13:27):
belittle the gospel, hope that we have. And so this
this song is like my letter to death. It's actually
addressed to death. So I'm talking to death and I'm
telling it that it's a terrible thing, but I have
a stronger hope. So I kind of see this song
as hopeful, but like a gospel like fist shake at death,

(13:49):
just defiant, like, yeah, you're terrible, but I have something
that's gonna, you know, I have the resurrection, and I
also have a God that that knows and understands and
and was nailed to a cross.

S1 (14:02):
I love that you mentioned your father's passing. It's in
the liner notes with the song. You mentioned that your
father passed in September 21st, and then you said this
song was written in October of that same.

S3 (14:16):
Year, right?

S1 (14:17):
So it seems fairly quickly that you were inspired to
put some pen to paper around the emotions of it.
Can you take us in to I mean, you mentioned
earlier you could tell that story. I'd love to know
more context there.

S2 (14:29):
Yeah. So he he went in for like a routine
heart surgery in August of 21, and it didn't go well,
but we thought he'd, you know, be out of the
hospital in a couple of days. I mean, no heart
surgery is lacks seriousness. But at the same time, they
said he'll be out in a couple of days and
he'll be back to normal in a, in a month.

(14:50):
And so that was kind of our expectation. But it
didn't go well. And so it was just one thing
after another as his body, you know, they'd fix one
thing and it was like two steps forward and three
steps back. And so just watching that process and seeing
my dad kind of go through that, and then he
ended up finally passing away at the end. And it

(15:10):
was just really, um, like I had been to funerals.
Of course, I'd been around a lot of death in
the general sense, but I think that I hadn't really
seen it up close. And like I said before, I
just was left with this feeling of like, this is
not what we were made for. Like this deep, know

(15:30):
it in my bones kind of feeling of we were
made to live eternally like death is not natural. You know,
in one sense, it's the most natural thing in the world.
And that's what Disney movies would have us believe with
the Circle of Life song. But in another sense, I
think as humans we know like, this is not okay.
This is not what we were made for. And I
think I was sitting in that tension and just kind

(15:52):
of overwhelmed with what I'd seen and then reading this book,
but also just kind of digging into my emotion. I
wrote that first verse, and then it started to become
a song, not just about what I had seen, but
also just sort of how we face death in many iterations,
whether it's, you know, a miscarriage, which so many of

(16:13):
my friends have experienced that or, you know, highway crash
or just getting older or the loss of a child,
like all of these ways that death haunts us. And
I was able to kind of broaden in verse two
to talk to death just in general the way that it,
you know, takes People. But then by verse three, bring

(16:33):
in Jesus and his experience with death to.

S1 (16:36):
I do love that stanza where you say in the
ICU and the highway crash, the chemo drip, the heart
attack and the gone too young and the getting old,
the empty chair, the quiet home. Oh Lord, how long.
I loved that stanza. And the way you kind of
bring everyone into the sorrow that you've already put out
there in your own story.

S3 (16:58):
To.

S1 (16:58):
Say, like, yeah, I know I'm not alone in this.
I know we all feel this yearning in that way.
I love that, and and, um, I guess I wonder
as you wrestle with your own, because part of this
podcast is not just about the context of a song,
but even about the song craft. Like, what do we
do with our own painful experiences? And so I bring

(17:19):
that up because I kind of love the way you
handled that of Here's Me. And yet also, even as
I grieve, I'm open and aware enough that like, it's
not just a self. I mean, which would be okay
for you just to fully be in your own grief
for three verses. That'd be fine too, right? And there's
no rules and yet. Right. Like, it really felt like
you wanted to bring others in, even as you were

(17:41):
processing your own. Do you remember? Do you remember that?
Even in the moment?

S2 (17:46):
Oh, for sure. I mean, I think for me just
I have I like I mentioned, I have some friends
that have had miscarriages or stillbirth and just, you know,
they're grieving on the bathroom floor and we just don't
talk about it. And that that is very real. And
a lot of people have felt that, you know, I
also have had friends that are dealing with cancer and

(18:07):
different things. And, and I think that when I, I
had been so abruptly shocked by death that it just
made me be like wanting to lift the veil on
all of these other ways that death gets at us.
And I think in the West, and as Christians, even
sometimes we're so quick to put a bow on it
and just say like, but, but you know and I

(18:29):
do have the but in in the song like I
do talk about resurrection and all of that. But I
think part of it was like I was so shocked
and so annoyed, you know, with death that I wanted to, like,
just be a little bit angry and just let that
angst kind of come out and say, like, this is
not how it's supposed to be in all of these ways.

(18:50):
And there's so many more, you know, and that experience, too,
of like the empty chair or the quiet home. I mean,
there's so many stories of friends or friends of friends
that have lost kids or even just this year at
my little public school, I played at a candlelight vigil
because a mom and her daughter died in a car crash,
you know, on Halloween night. And this little kindergarten girl.

(19:13):
And it's just all of these iterations where death is
definitely an interrupter. And I actually wrote about that on
the rabbit Room, where death and beauty kind of interrupt us.
And I think that's what I was trying to do,
is just say, like, we all experience this, but I
think we should allow ourselves to be interrupted and shocked
so that we don't have to stay angry or wallow.

(19:36):
But we don't also need to sanitize this, because if
we do, we belittle the resurrection. So I hope that
answers your question. I kind of went off a little
bit there, but yeah, that's where I was.

S1 (19:47):
No, that was that was great. That was great. I'm
so I love that idea of interruption because sometimes I mean, like,
you know, if I could just be I. Yeah, I
guess I'll just share this. You know, we have my
wife and I, we have a son who, who went
through some really early brain trauma, some neurological things, seizures
that we didn't know what was going on. So we
were at this children's hospital. I remember dropping off my

(20:09):
wife and my son at the children's hospital so they
could make the appointment. And then I had to go
park the car and it was like a mess to
park the car. It took me several minutes. So I
in other words, in other words, I came in alone
to Riley Children's Hospital, downtown Town, Indianapolis. And I've got
to find where they're at on floor five and this
maze of corridors. So I'm just walking by an endless

(20:31):
parade of. From the moment I enter the building, there's
the kid with no hair, and then the kid walking
with her own IV drip, and then the sobbing parents
in this room and oh, I'm on the wrong floor.
But now I'm totally exposed to a whole wing of
children suffering whatever. And like I was weeping. Yeah, I mean,

(20:52):
I could cry even now, but I was weeping by
the time I found our room for some testing, because
he was going on an EKG and had all the
wires on his head. And I just thought every major
urban center has one of these.

S3 (21:05):
Oh, yeah.

S1 (21:06):
An entire building constructed around the suffering of children, many
of whom will never leave this place. Right? Like their
like their entire lives will be lived out in sterilized
hallways and whatever, like, like rooms like this and I
was undone. I didn't even know what I like. I
couldn't even handle. Like you mentioned, the interruptive nature of death.

(21:30):
And like when you said that, I thought of, like,
being in that hospital because I was not present for
my son's test in the way that I thought I
would be, because I was just so interrupted by the
overwhelming nature of death. You talked about, like addressing the
fact that death is real and and like, the floor
is really there, you know, like, you know.

S3 (21:50):
Yeah. But then you.

S1 (21:51):
Also intermingled that with beauty and saying, like, but you
think that beauty interrupts us too.

S3 (21:57):
Right?

S1 (21:57):
And I just love that because I thought, oh, I
don't want to just give death that power to interrupt
me and then overwhelm me. Ultimately. And the reason I
brought this up is because, like, one thing your song
does and I love that you said this is what
I'm trying to do overall is how do I acknowledge that?
But then also re interrupt our lives with something beautiful
on the other side, which is which is that hope?
I don't even know if I have a question here.

(22:19):
I was just.

S3 (22:19):
Like.

S1 (22:20):
Yeah, I just think of that experience and what you're
saying and and I appreciate that.

S2 (22:25):
So that article I wrote on The Rabbit Room, I
also was writing about this song called Burning Bushes Everywhere,
which is about kind of what C.S. Lewis talks about
when we're overwhelmed by beauty and we're like, oh, I
must be made for another world, like that kind of thing.
And I was talking about the eclipse, and I think
both of those things interrupt us, and in this case,

(22:46):
death interrupts us. But if we allow it, especially as Christians,
I think we feel a pressure to be okay with
death and to put a bow on it and to
quickly get to the. But he's in heaven now, and
da da da da. But I think what we're invited
to do as Christians is say death is a terrible thing.
It's an enemy. Even in John, when Jesus was at

(23:07):
Lazarus's tomb like he was weeping. And that word there
is actually has a connotation of like anger, you know?
And so I'm just picturing Jesus being and I'm not
a Bible scholar. So I hope I'm saying this right.
But I think he was like defiantly angry at death.
That death was affecting his beloved, you know. And so

(23:28):
if Jesus could be mad at death, too, it gives
me a lot of comfort. And in a way that's
a really beautiful thing. And he so hated death that
he was willing to take it on and then resurrect.
And there's this hope. It's like this battle cry kind
of hope where this defiant, like, we can shake our
fists at death. And that is part of the Christian

(23:49):
experience because we have a God that has suffered, too.
And we have we have a God that's defeated death.
And then one day death will be no more in
the new heavens and the new earth. And so again,
we've already talked about this, but you can kind of
hold both. And if we allow death to be the
terrible thing that it is, and we don't stop there,
we don't wallow in that. We let it kind of

(24:10):
take us in its current to, oh my gosh, I
need God, and I need the resurrection to be true,
because this is worse than I thought. And then we
can say, oh, and the gospel is better than I thought,
because he did defeat death. And, you know, you know,
just like have that defiance with death. I think there's
nothing else like it. And I'm so thankful that it's

(24:31):
it's true. And so I think with this song, I
hope that people are like, okay, it's worse than I thought.
I experienced death this way too. I'm tired of sanitizing it.
I don't it's hard to put a bow on it
for me, but I have such great hope because I
have Jesus and he defeated it. And so it's not
a putting a bow on it, but it is saying like,
the story doesn't stop with how terrible death is.

S1 (24:54):
This seems like an ideal time. We'd love for you
to introduce your song and say anything else about it
that you'd like.

S2 (25:00):
Yeah, my name is Caroline Cobb and this song is death,
you terrible thing. And it's a letter to death full
of gospel defiance.

UU (25:18):
I remember the sounds in his hospital room.

S4 (25:25):
Saw his heart give out after what he'd been through.

UU (25:33):
I remember the words when they said he was gone.
The way we cried.

S4 (25:44):
How it felt so wrong. Oh, death. You terrible.

UU (25:53):
Thing. I know in my bones it's not the way
it's supposed to be. But. Oh, death, where is your sting?
Cause I have a God who knows, who sits and

(26:16):
weeps with me. And I have a steady hope that
all will be redeemed.

S4 (26:26):
But you're a terrible thing.

UU (26:36):
I can see her crying on the bathroom floor. Baby
they loved isn't there anymore? In the ICU in the
highway crash. The chemo drip in the heart. Attack in

(27:01):
the gone. Too young in the getting old. The empty chair.
The quiet home. Oh, Lord. How Alone. Oh. Did you?
Terrible thing. I know in my bones it's not the

(27:25):
way it's supposed to be, but. Oh, death, where is
your sting? Cause I have a God who knows. Who
sits and weeps with me. And I have a steady hope.

(27:49):
That all will be redeemed.

S4 (27:53):
But you're a terrible thing. I can see.

UU (28:12):
Jesus hanging on that cross. His shallow breathing. His failing heart.
I can see him weeping at his friend's tomb. I
know he's weeping with me too. I can see him

(28:36):
rising from the grave. I know he'll wipe my tears away.
But until then, we wait. Oh, death, you terrible things.

(28:56):
I know in my bones it's not the way it's
supposed to be. But. Oh, death. Where is your sting?
Cause I have a God who knows. Who sits and

(29:17):
weeps with me. And I have a steady hope. That
all will be redeemed. But you're a terrible thing. You
terrible thing.

S1 (29:47):
You've been listening to the deepest cut part of the
Rabbit Room podcast network audio production and theme music by
Isaac Vining. Logo and identity work by Meg Cook. The
Deepest cut was created and hosted by me, Matt Conner.
Thank you so much for listening.