Neko Case

Certain Songs #1303: Neko Case – “Man”

August 25, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You
Year: 2013

Over the years Neko Case has sung from the perspective of all sorts of exotic creatures: tornadoes, tigers, tides, but on 2013’s stellar The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, she personifies the most exotic creature of all: a man.

In what’s probably her most rocking song ever, Neko takes a look at gender stereotypes and with guitars blazing, is her typical unsparing self.

Certain Songs #1302: Neko Case – “Middle Cyclone”

August 24, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Middle Cyclone
Year: 2009

In 2009, Neko Case followed the leveling-up of Fox Confessor Brings The Flood with another fine album, Middle Cyclone, that among other things featured one of the best album covers of the 21st century, long after album covers were a thing.

Still, the image of Neko brandishing (because that’s literally the only verb) a sword while tiger crouching on the hood of a 1967 Mercury Cougar — which she named “Angie Dickinson” — was instantly iconic, to the point where she ended raffling off the car for charity.

Certain Songs #1301: Neko Case – “Margaret Vs. Pauline”

August 23, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Year: 2006

As it turns out, Neko Case’s live album, The Tigers Have Spoken was the end of the first phase of her career. When she came back in 2006 with Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, her music had changed: the new songs were simultaneously more expansive and more personal.

Expansive that her music went beyond the boundaries of alt-country, and personal in that she started going even deeper on the subjects in which she was interested.

Certain Songs #1300: Neko Case – “The Tigers Have Spoken (Live)”

August 22, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Tigers Have Spoken
Year: 2004

Celebrating the latest big round number with my very favorite Neko Case song, and a song that’s on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Alt-Country division.

With Dallas & Travis Good — guitarists of co-writers/backing band The Sadies — jingling and jangling their guitars around chord changes that came from the beginning of the universe and will outlast the the final star, “The Tigers Have Spoken” is simultaneously anthemic and bittersweet.

Certain Songs #1299: Neko Case – “The Train From Kansas City (Live)”

August 21, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Tigers Have Spoken
Year: 2004

Because it it’s always been seen as a stopgap between Blacklisted and the leveling-up of Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, Neko Case’s 2004 live album, The Tigers Have Spoken has always been kind of underrated.

But to me, it’s an absolutely essential record. Not only does it have many songs that aren’t on any of her other albums, it also contains my favorite Neko Case original — which we’ll talk about tomorrow — and my favorite Neko Case cover, her take on The Shangri-Las “The Train From Kansas City,” which is one of the greatest songs ever written.

Certain Songs #1298: Neko Case – “South Tacoma Way”

August 20, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Furnace Room Lullaby
Year: 2000

On each of her first three studio albums, you could see Neko Case move ever forward: if her debut, The Virginian was an equal amount of covers and originals, and her third album, Blacklisted — which is where I think I came aboard — is pretty much all songs Case wrote on her own, her sophomore album, Furnace Room Lullaby, was all collaborations.

But there was no question that Case was running the show, and Furnace Room Lullaby is probably my favorite of the records she made during this period, with the highlight being the torch elegy, “South Tacoma Way.”

Certain Songs #1297: Neko Case – “Duchess”

August 19, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Virginian
Year: 1997

When Neko Case’s debut album — credited to Neko Case & Her Boyfriends — The Virginian debuted in 1997, I doubt anyone knew how much of a major artist she would end up being.

For one thing, the alt-country music on the album was miles away from the good-time pop-punk of her original band, Maow, and furthermore, she only had writing credits on half of The Virginian, the last time that would happen on one of her studio albums.