SpringSongs, Pt. V

This Tornado Loves You by Neko Case

Neko doesn’t write love songs, but this is about as close as she’s ever gotten, with the tornado being somewhat of an extension of her psyche. Well, that's what it comes across as to me at least. Tornadoes are, by far, my most-feared natural phenomenon. Spending thirteen of my formative years in the tornado alley of Central Illinois while living in a house without a basement, I vividly recall a few spring nights huddling with my family in the bathtub under heavy blankets while the wind whipped the house and the civil defense sirens screamed. The song opens with repeated guitar plucking and conveys the nervous energy that ran thick on those nights when a fast-moving cold front would crash into a warm front that was stalled high above the Central IL plains. Just add the distinct train-like sounds that a tornado creates.

Here’s a great YouTube video of her performing the song on Letterman: 

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths
But it's never enough

I want you...

Carved your name across three counties
Grounded in with bloody hides
Their broken necks will line the ditch
Till you stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop this madness

I want you...

I have waited with a glacier's patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
Till nothing was standing
Sixty five miles wide
Still, you are nowhere
Still, you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight

Come out to meet me
Run out to meet me
Come into the light

Climb the boxcars, to the engine
Through the smoke, into the sky
Your rails have always outrun mine
So I
Picked them up and crashed them down
In a moment close to now

Cause I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss

How you'd sigh yourself to sleep
When I'd rake the springtime
Across your sheets

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left the motherless, fatherless
Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths
But it's never enough

My love
I'm an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing

This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you

What will make you believe me?

This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you

What will make you believe me?