Gut Feeling: Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

Neko Case – The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

Anti, 2013

 

When I heard the proposed title of Neko Case’s new album in an NPR piece about the record’s progress, I said, “please don’t change that title” under my breath three times fast. Nothing grates on me more than a boring album title. Still, no matter what Case decided to title the record, it would still be the most powerful and disarming work she’s crafted to date. These days it feels so rare to fall head over heels for a record on the first spin through and I was in love with this album before it was even done playing. There’s something really nice about having faith in an artist. While I felt her previous LP Middle Cyclone was a bit overstuffed, the songs were almost exclusively gems. This time around, Case is straight-up lean. The songs are brutally concise, honed like twelve little daggers that cut straight into that part of your gut that causes such exclamations as, “Holy shit, this is a fucking masterpiece.”

Neko Case stopped dying her hair. At least that’s what my wife said. She’s a Case superfan and our romance has roots in a New Pornographers mix I made for her four years ago (heavy on the Case-led jams). She says she read an interview about the hair-dying thing. It seems fitting; as if Case is somehow stripping away the aura of ineffable cool that has always surrounded her. Watching Case on stage the words “flame-haired chanteuse” always immediately come to mind. You get the impression that there’s a personal sea change at work, and while The Worse Things Get… is different from any other record Case has produced, it’s the deeply personal autobiographical content that causes the record to hit harder than any other album in Case’s discography. It’s not small feat, considering that Case is one of the strongest songwriters currently working. Maybe ever. I’d be willing to say that Neko Case is just as talented as Bob Dylan, and that you might as well start etching her name on the plaque at the pantheon of greats right now.

This thing is a lyrical blockbuster. You could throw a rock and hit a brilliant line (“I only ever held one love/ Her name was Mary Anne/ She died having a child by her brother/ He died because I murdered him” on one of the album’s rare fictional story-songs “Bracing for Sunday” is one of my favorites) but the music and the production is the sort of stuff that leaves you breathless. The specter of M Ward’s guitar work, the deftness of Kelly Hogan’s backing vocals which feel as much a part of Case’s records as Case herself, and the gorgeous idiosyncrasy of Case’s melodies that play so perfectly with the words she wraps around them. There’s the a capella “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu” which details maternal neglect in such terrifically sad detail I wept the first time I heard it. And then there are the horns that push the magisterial closer “Ragtime” into the stratosphere and leaves your head spinning. There’s the hushed tenderness of “I’m From Nowhere” and the sadness embedded in long distance romance in “Calling Cards” and then there’s the rollicking attack on gender identity “Man” and the vibrant pop majesty of “City Swans,” which is the sweetest, most tuneful track on the record. There is no dud. Where Middle Cyclone’s b-sides were as much a part of the fabric as gems like “This Tornado Loves You” and “I’m an Animal.” Like the best albums, when The Worse Things Get… ends it feels like it’s over all too soon and immediately warrants another listen. And another. And another.

"City Swans"

"I'm From Nowhere"

"Ragtime"

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

Anti, 2009

Acquired: King’s Road Merch Mailorder, New, 2013
Price: $20

 

When I first heard Middle Cyclone, my first response was: “More like Middling Cyclone.” I thought this because after falling deeply in love with Neko Case’s previous album—Fox Confessor Brings the Flood—I had high expectations. And I was enough of a dipshit to realize that my expectations had been met. The thing with Middle Cyclone is that it’s a long record. Or at least feels like a long record (the last half hour of the thing is just crickets and night noises, so maybe that adds to my perception that this is a long player in every sense of the word). Since Neko Case is pretty much Jenny’s favorite artist hands down (we are seeing her in Lawrence in October and every couple days she alerts me to this fact), I bought her this and Furnace Room Lullaby on vinyl for our anniversary. We listen to this one a lot on trips back to Kansas and every time I hear it, the more I like it. Still, it took until I listened to it on vinyl (the album is split over two LPs) that it really clicked. By segmenting Middle Cyclone into bite-sized chunks songs I’d totally ignored really popped. “This Tornado Loves You” and “People Got A Lotta Nerve” were my early favorites because they are the most straightforward, catchy numbers, but the middle part of the album kind of blended into a haze until “I’m an Animal” blew me away. But “Fever,” “Polar Nettles,” and “Magpie in the Morning” are these gorgeous little tunes. It’s not like you even have to be patient to enjoy them; you just need to be able to shut down and enjoy. Jenny’s favorite song on the album is “The Pharaohs,” which is another track I had ignored until she played it a thousand times. It’s outstanding and has a similar tone to Fox Confessor standout (and my favorite song of 2006) “Star Witness.” It’s got a mythic feeling, with knock-out lines like “You kept me wanting, wanting, wanting like the wanting in the movies and the hymns/ I want the Pharaohs but there’s only men.” Speaking of the writing, it’s great. But what else did you expect? Neko Case has a gift for weaving her songs together with wit and a deep emotional understanding that I feel is somehow underrated given how goddamn cool she seems. The more I think about that blend of humor and sadness makes her cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Don’t Forget Me” make a whole lotta sense (“I miss you when I’m lonely/ I miss the alimony too”). Anyone else writing a song about a tornado in love with a girl, chasing her from county to county leaving a wake of destruction in its path might write something gimmicky but Case just leaves you with that heavy feeling in your chest. Sure it’s a metaphor, but it’s told so literally and the images are so vivid and violent that the whole thing is just devastatingly electric. The album is laced with a theme of Mother Nature’s Fury/purity (most notably on the Sparks cover “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth,” the aforementioned “This Tornado Loves You,” “People Got a Lot of Nerve” right down to the goddamn crickets at the very end). And tornados. So many tornados. It’s an outstanding piece of work.