For those of you who don’t
know who Neko Case is, let me just say she is one of the best artist of
all-time and that you are about to get a crash course in some of my favorite
music of hers. Picking my ten favorite Neko songs is as hard as picking my ten
favorite children (If I had 80 –some children, and loved or/at least liked them
all)(if I had than many children, there’s no way I’d even like half of them,
but that’s another story for another time.) If I had to describe the genre that
best fit Neko, I would go with Americana since it is the easiest label to use for her, but
with a strong rock flair, she is like a female Ryan Adams without all the drug
fueled drama and with much more humbleness. Seeing her live was great, she was
great with audience interaction and was very self-depreciating without it
coming off as an act. If you are
drawn to old country music, you’ll love her first two CD’s (the Virginian and Furnace
Room Lullaby), if swamp guitar infused electricana (think Postishead mixed with
“Screamin” Jay Hawkins, but in a more subdued, approachable way*) you’ll dig
Blacklisted, Her two most recent releases are probably the most globally loved
and approachable (but it’s not like any of her music is niche based): Fox
Confession Brings the Flood, and Middle Cyclone.
I first became aware of Neko by way of WNRN, who
would play her music form time to time. It wasn’t until I saw her name on
the credits of an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force as one of the sirens who
tear the flesh off of John Kruks body (funnier than it sounds), that I decided
to download some of her music, and from the moment I finished listening to the
first song of hers I downloaded, I was an instant fan.
Neko’s
looks alone are worth talking about, as she is probably the prettiest natural
looking women to play the guitar and/or sing. Any pop star not named Gwen
Stefani or Britney Spears** could only wish to be as pretty as Neko without
smearing inches of make up on (think Katy Perry), but it’s her song writing and
amazing voice that gets her the radio listens (think the opposite of Katy Perry.)
I haven’t even mentioned the fact that she is from Virginia, though raised in
Washington state and gaining fame mostly in Chicago and Canada. Neko first
gained a little bit of fame as the female singer in the band the New
Pornographers, but I mostly love her solo work and that is all I am going to
list on my top ten songs. Title/album/youtube clip, (if available.)
10. Next Time You Say For Ever-Middle Cyclones (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_izWbQZSFU)
Never tell Neko you’ll love her forever if you don’t mean it, she doesn't take
to kindly to it.
Best Lyrics: The next
time you say forever/I will punch you in your face
9. That Teenage Feeling-Fox
Confessor Brings the Flood (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RV-5j4wQsQ):
Neko has met the love of her life, she feels like she’s a teenager again,
falling in love for the first time. Best Lyrics: (opening stanza): Now that we’ve
met/We can only laugh at these regrets/common as a winter’s cold/they’re
telephone poles/one after another after another.
8. Mood To Burn
Brigdes- Furnance Room Lullaby (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s6DQSIjTFs):
The people in Tacamo sure like to love to talk and gossip, but only about Neko
and she is fed up with it.
Best Lyrics: (chorus):
If you want moral advice/I suggest you just tuck it all away/cause my mood to
burn bridges/not unlike my mood to dig ditches/don’t cross me on neither a day.
7. Vengeance is
Sleeping-Middle Cyclones (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvYUWdxuXKw)
Neko sure is vindictive, in this she is thinking about getting back at the man
who cheated on her and left her long ago.
Best Lyrics: If your
not by now dead and buried/your must certifiably married/oh, married/I’m sure
you’re sleeping sound/with the mistress of the hour/hours that grind your life
away to dust.
AND
But you’re the one that
I still miss/you’re the one that I still miss/and it’s ruthless that it comes
as no surprise
When she came to
Charlottesville, she sang this song, and someone was smart enough to record it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwXX5NGbQH8
6. The Pharaohs-Middle
Cyclones (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBsEXQ2gN20)
In this song, a 16 year old Neko (her age in the song…not when she wrote it)
Imagines meeting the love of her life on his wedding day…Things just get crazy
from there.
Best Lyrics: I want the
Pharaohs/but there’s only men
5. Furnace Room
Lullaby-Furnace Room Lullaby (and The Gift soundtrack) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nBt_e9tzdQ):
This song kind of reminds me of a song version of the Edgar Allen Poe short
story, the Tale-tell Heart, chick can wail too.
Best Lyrics: At night
all I hear/all I hear/is your Heaaaaaarrrrrtttt
4. Things that scare me-Blacklisted
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBLI9jq6tUY):
The first song I ever download off of Limewire by her, still one of my
favorites, the lead track off her best album more than sets the mood for the
rest of it.
Best Lyrics: I am the
dying breed/That still believes/haunted by, American dreams
3.
Blacklisted-Blacklisted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMgkop02h7s) I love the
guitar in it, all sorts of backwoods swampiness dripping off it. If I ever did
a soundtrack for a movie and there was a night driving scene, I would have this
song in the background. I actually listened to it for an hour on repeat once
while I was driving across the country to California, during one of those long
hauls in Texas where there is nothing else going on except oil fields. If you
ever have to drive through Texas, do it at night, you’re not missing much visually
and it goes on for hours, while I was driving it was a full moon, which was
pretty awesome. (Editor’s note: This song was in the movie hell ride)
Best Lyrics: Fast
train/where do your passangers wait?/what’s at the heart/of your engines
rage?/to what smooth place/at the end of the line/with crackling fire/and quite
planes/do the trees bend down/fold their limbs round you?/welcome home faithful
one/we forgive/we forgive you/slow down fast train, slow down fast train/take
me with you (yes those are all the lyrics)
2. Prison Girls-Middle
Cyclones (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sLNVRIndYI)
I just read a description of this songs guitar part as surf-bluesy, I’ll go
with that (who says everyone that post on youtube is an idiot) This song is
about how much better Neko’s life is than that of girls in prison (okay,
probably not exactly, but it might be). I love the mood the music sets in many of
her songs.
Best lyrics: Long
shadows crawl beneath the floor/ to a passage so poorly lit/there’s moth flying
away from it.
Here’s another version
of the song, she’s doing it with Elvis Costello and a bunch of other people,
she is the only one who sings. I don’t like it as much as the album track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5FHslmkBFA
1 Ghost Wiring-Blacklisted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITuK7Mqo6o)
Another masterpiece from her album blacklisted. This song is about how much she
misses her home of Tacoma, Washington and about her life on the road. The
guitar is haunting as usual.
Best Lyrics: Don’t feel sorry for
yourself/I’ll always wait for you/Your ghost is a light show at night/on the
Grand Coulee Damn/the river is watching you/at the drive in tonight/who do they
comfort now?/that I’ve gone away.
Listen to the songs, and tell me
what you think
*I doubt you’ve heard of
Portishead or screamin Jay Hawkins if you haven’t heard of Neko, but they are
both acts you should look up.
**In her prime, Brittney was the hottest
woman on the planet, pop-star or otherwise. I refuse to listen to anyone else’s
second opinion on this, this is a closed case-file.
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