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? 

Wintersongs, Pt. IV

This song’s simple acoustic guitar strumming introduction is enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. And once the lovely Ms. Case’s siren-like vocals kick in I’m lost in the song. It’s clearly one of the standout tracks from her breakthrough 2002 record Blacklisted that saw her move beyond the simple alt-country stylings of her earlier efforts and into a darker, deeper, haunted, Judy Garland-as-channeled-by-David-Lynch type of vibe. (Did I use enough descriptions there?) Well-suited to late night winter drives when abundant snow flurries whip past the windshield on lonely two-lane country roads, her velvet voice and the rich production and arrangement keeping my soul warm.

(horrible fan-made video since she never made one for the song):

Neko Case – Stinging Velvet

Rain falls, I fix my eyes
Let go of the focus and I blur out all the lines
Just to remember, remember

Crying 'cause it's not my fault
Water through my lashes look just like Christmas lights
And I still remember, remember

Cold and shivering
Cold and shivering
Cold and shivering warm

Sing please, rock me to sleep
Quiet as a canyon up under heaven's eaves
I surrender, surrender

Downstairs the furnace swells
Safe from all the horrors in your stinging velvet arms
And I surrender, surrender

Cold and shivering
Cold and shivering