album: "Middle Cyclone" (2009)

This Tornado Loves You lyrics - Neko Case

[Chorus:]
My love I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls dangling inside-out from thier mouths...
But it's never enough
I want you

I carved your name across three counties
And ground it in with bloody hides
Broken necks will line the ditch
Till you "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

But 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 and to the sky

Your rails could always outrun mine so I
I picked them up and crashed them down
In a moment close to now
Cause I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss
How you'd sigh yourself to sleep
When I'd rake the springtime across your sheets

[Chorus]

My love, I'm an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing
This tornado loves you, what will make you believe me?

The Next Time You Say Forever lyrics - Neko Case

I hear the tiniest sparks in the tenderest sound.
Diving music, drowning the sound.
waltzing with the hairs upon my arms.
And your fire flood alarm, and you tremble, and you stumble, and you scrape up your palms.
I can't stay here to hold your hand.
I've been away for so long.
I've lost my taste for home, and thats a dirty fallow feeling.
To be the dangling ceiling.
From the roof came crashing down.
Peeling in the heat.
Vanish in the rain.
The next time you say forever, I'll punch you in your face.
Just because you don't believe it, doesn't mean I didn't mean it.
You never know when I'll show you the never.
You never know when I'll show you the never.

People Got A Lotta Nerve lyrics - Neko Case

So the saying says
An elephant never forgets
Standing in the concrete cave
Swaying side and sing
They walked over the ocean
And their dreams they dreamed awake
Until the lights grew dim
Until the cop cars came
Everybody tells me this is crazy, yes I know

But I'm a man man man man man man man eater
But still you're surprised prised prised when I eat ya

You know they call them killer whales
But you seem suprised
When it pinned you down to the bottom of the tank
Where you can't turn around
It took half your leg and both your lungs
And I craved I ate hearts of sharks, I know you know it

I'm a man man man man, man man man eater
But still you're surprised prised prised when I eat ya [X2]

It will end again in moonlit song
It will end again in moonlit song

Polar Nettles lyrics - Neko Case

He takes his dinner in the bath
Love sickened and infirmed
The orderly found him there
Fileted on the marble stairs
Hat still in hand
His smoking remains
Blown out by a kiss from the sunday scene
Sunday soon sunday soon someday soon

Someday someday someday

His eyes are closed his mouth has named her rosary her lips and tongue
She is the centrifuge that throws the spies from the sun
The cistine chapel dated with the gattling gun
Someday soon [x4]

Oh the meadows set on him
Move like starlings of the clearing and tenor of a foggy tongue
The forcefield round his frosty hips
Whose shape recalls the (?)
That buried him but on his lips the last rites of man
Someday soon

Vengeance Is Sleeping lyrics - Neko Case

I didn't know what a brute I was
I dipped my cigarette and rode the bus
Vengeance built me hastily
And I drag the clanging notion I was nobody, nobody
Nobody

All I had was my invention
And my love it fitted on you
Oh, look what thoughts can do
What thoughts can do
If you're not by now dead and buried
You're most certifiably married
Oh, married

I'm sure you're sleeping sound
With a mistress of the hours
The hours that grind your life to dust

Oh, easy loves
You keep lap pets
Denied them you are powerless
Whatever keeps you sleeping through the night

I'm not the man you thought I was
My love has never lived indoors
I had to drag it home by force
Hired hounds at both my wrists
Damp and bruised by stranger's kisses on my lips
But you're the one that I still miss
You're the one that I still miss
And the truth is that it comes as no surprise

I'm not the man you think I am
I'm not the man you think I am

Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth lyrics - Neko Case

[Originally performed by Sparks]

When she's on her best behavior
Don't be tempted by her favors
Never turn your back on mother earth

Towns are hurled from A to B
By hands that looked so smooth to me
Never turn your back on mother earth

Grasp at straws that don't want grasping
Gaze at clouds that come down crushing
Never turn your back on mother earth

Three days, two nights away from my friends
Amen to anything that brings quick return
To my friends, to my friends

I'll admit I was unfaithful
From now on I'll be more faithful

Never turn your back on mother
(Never turn your back)
Never turn your back on mother
(Never turn your back)
Never turn your back on mother earth
(Never turn your back)

Middle Cyclone lyrics - Neko Case

Baby, why'm I worried now,
Did someone make a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done?
Can't give up actin' tough,
It's all that I'm made of.
Can't scrape together quite enough
To ride the bus to the outskirts
Of the fact that I need love.

There were times that I tried,
One for every glass of water
That I spilled next to the bed,
Wretching pennies in a boiling well
In a dream that it once becomes
A foundry of mute and heavy bells.
They shake me deaf and dumb
Say, "Someone made a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done."

It was so clear to me
That it was almost invisible.
I lie across the path waiting,
Just for a chance to be a spiderweb
Trapped in your lashes.
For that, I would trade you my empire for ashes.
But I choke it back, how much I need love...

Magpie To The Morning lyrics - Neko case

Magpie comes a calling drops a marble from the sky
Tin roof sounds alarming wake up child
Let this be a warning says the magpie to the morning
Don't let this fading summer pass you by
Don't let this fading summer pass you by
Black and tells so high
The vulture wheels and dives
Something on the thermals
You just change
Smelled your boring apex
Rotting on the train tracks
He laughed under his breath because you thought that you could outrun sorrow
Take your own advice
Thunder and lightening gets you rain
Runnin airtight mission a crystal expedition find me down under the bottom of the drain
Dive into the bottom of the drain
Hear your (?)
In the middle of the night
All of his songs are stolen so he hides
Stole them out from the whipoorwill
Screaming common lies
He sings them for you special
He knows you're afraid of the dark come on sorrow take your own advice
Hide in the red
Turn out the light stars this night in the sky are ringing our you can almost hear them singing
Close your eyes now kid
Close your eyes now kid
Morning's too far lit
They are waiting
Waiting
They are waiting

Prison Girls lyrics - Neko Case

Where am I tonight? La, da, da
My hotel room won't remember me
And this dream will die, die by morning
And this dream won't remember me

Awakened by a droning voice
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
Is it a lady or is it a man
Humming helicopters through the blades of a fan

I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes

On my feet to chase it down
The lights were spokes and rungs away
I stumbled back and hit the floor
Long shadows crawl beneath the door
To a passage so poorly lit
There's moths flying away from it

Who am I tonight? La, da, da
My hotel room won't remember me
Darkness enter prison girls
Pushing mops and kicking pails
Now's my chance
I clasp my chest
And declare unto my audience
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes

Prison girls are not impressed
They're the ones that have to clean this mess
They've traded more for cigarettes
Than I've managed to express

Filing past miles long
The cheek is frozen to the floor
The prison girls have filled their beds
Their thoughts too dry above their heads

I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes

Don't Forget Me lyrics - Neko Case

In the wintertime keep your feet warm
But keep your clothes on and don't forget me
Keep your memories
But keep your powder dry too

In the summer by the poolside
While the fireflies are all around you
I'll miss you when I'm lonely
I'll miss the alimony too

Don't forget me, don't forget me
Make it easy, only just for a little while
You know I think about you
Let me know you think about me too

And when we're older and full of cancer
It doesn't matter now, come on get happy
'Cause nothing lasts forever
But I will always love you

Don't forget me, please don't forget me
Make it easy, only just for a little while
You know I think about you
Let me know you think about me too

The Pharaohs lyrics - Neko Case

You were married in the mirrored hall when I was 16
You spoke the words, "I love girls in white leather jackets"
That was good enough for love, it was good enough for me

I listened in when you thought you were lost
Caught in those fangs on a tornado sprawl

Who knows what you know
I only heard what I wanted
You said I was your blue, blue baby
And you were right
You said I was your blue, blue baby
And you were right

Wondered the halls of the nighttime
My body burned, my legs ached
But you never came to bed
You just left me there awake

You kept me wanting wanting wanting
Like the wanting in the movies and the hymns
I want the pharaohs, but there's only men
I want the pharaohs, but there's only men

You said I was your new blue baby
And you were right
You said I was your new blue baby
And you were right

Red Tide lyrics - Neko Case

There's a smell here that stands my hairs on end
Dog hair in the heater, gas pumps and cedar
And jackknifes on the nine
And seabirds choked on fishing line

Clouds are a hush but the chainsaws mush on to Custer and Columbia
Salty tentacles drink in the sun but the red tide is over
The mollusks they have won

There's a smell here of gravel and cigarettes lit
When the match made them sweet
When the engine turned over and beat up our street
Oh, that was the day
To remember

I remember because of the fires that leapt
From the caves of the things that have not happened yet
When I think of it now they smell to me quite sinister

I want to go back and die at the drive in
Die before strangers can say
I hate the rain
I hate the rain

Marais La Nuit lyrics Neko Case

Ribbit

Ribbit

Chirp Chirp

Ribbit

[Repeat for 30 minutes]

album: "Fox Confessor Brings The Flood" (2006)

Margaret vs. Pauline lyrics - Neko Case

Everything's so easy for Pauline
Everything's so easy for Pauline
Ancient strings set feet a light to speed to her such mild grace
No monument of tacky gold
They smoothed her hair with cinnamon waves
And they placed an ingot in her breast to burn cool and collected
Fate holds her firm in its cradle and then rolls her for a tender pause to savor
Everything's so easy for Pauline

Girl with the parking lot eyes
Margaret is the fragments of a name
Her bravery is mistaken for the thrashing in the lake
Of the make-believe monster whose picture was faked
Margaret is the fragments of a name
Her love pours like a fountain
Her love steams like rage
Her jaw aches from wanting and she's sick from chlorine
But she'll never be as clean
As the cool side of satin, Pauline

Two girls ride the blue line
Two girls walk down the same street
One left her sweater sittin' on the train
The other lost three fingers at the cannery
Everything's so easy for Pauline

Star Witness lyrics - Neko Case

My true love drowned in a dirty old pan
Of oil that did run from the block
Of a falcon sedan 1969
The paper said '75
There were no survivors
None found alive

Trees break the sidewalk
And the sidewalk skins my knees
There's glass in my thermos
And blood on my jeans
Nickels and dimes of the fourth of July
Roll off in a crooked line
To the chain-link lots where the red tails dive
Oh how I forgot what it's like

[Chorus:]
Hey when she sings, when she sings when she sings like she runs
Moves like she runs
Hey when she moves, when she moves when she moves like she runs
Moves like she runs
Hey there there's such deadly wolves 'round town tonight
Round the town tonight
Hey there there's such deadly wolves 'round town tonight
Round the town tonight

Hey pretty baby get high with me,
We can go to my sisters if we say we'll watch the baby"
The look on your face yanks my neck on the chain
And I would do anything
To see you again

So I've fallen behind:

[Chorus]

Go on, go on scream and cry
You're miles from where anyone will find you
This is nothing new, no television crew
They don't even put on the sirens
My nightgown sweeps the pavement
Please don't let him die

Oh how I forgot...

Hold On, Hold On lyrics - Neko Case



The most tender place in my heart is for strangers
I know it's unkind but my own blood is much too dangerous
Hangin' round the ceiling half the time
Hangin' round the ceiling half the time

Compared to some I've been around
But I really tried so hard
That echo chorus lied to me with its
"Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on"

In the end I was the mean girl
Or somebody's in-between girl
Now it's the devil I love
And that's as funny as real love

I leave the party at three a.m.
Alone, thank God
With a valium from the bride
It's the devil I love
And that's as funny as real love
And that's as real as true love

That echo chorus lied to me with its
"Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on"

That echo chorus lied to me with its
"Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on"

A Widow's Toast lyrics - Neko Case

Specters move like pilot flames
Their widows toast at St. Angel
Better times collide with now
The tears were warm, I feel them still
Their heat to vapor and disperse
And cloud our eyes with weary glaze

You raise your glass and may exclaim
"I'll put my hands on the truth by God"
But it's faster, love, than you and me
Faster than the speed of gravity
That's how it catches you from falling
And how it always slips away

Specters move like pilot flames
Their widows toast at St. Angel
Better times collide with now
And better times
And better times are coming still

That Teenage Feeling lyrics - Neko Case

Now that we've met
We can only laugh at these regrets
Common as a winter cold
They're telephone poles
They follow each other
One, after another, after another
But now my heart is green as weeds
Grown to outlive their season

And nothing comforts me the same
As my brave friend who says,
"I don't care if forever never comes
'Cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling
I'm holding out for that teenage feeling"

All the loves we had
All we ever knew
Did they fill me with so many secrets
That keep me from loving you
'Cause it's hard, hard

Fox Confessor Brings The Flood lyrics - Neko Case

Driving home I see those flooded fields
How can people not know what beauty this is
I've taken it for granted my whole life
Since the day I was born

Clouds hang on these curves like me
And I kneel to the wheel
Of the fox confessor on splendid heels
And he shames me from my seat
And on my guilty feet
I follow him in retreat

What purpose in these deeds
Oh fox confessor please
Who married me to these orphaned blues
"It's not for you to know, but for you to weep and wonder
When the death of your civilization precedes you."

Will I ever see you again
Will there be no one above me to put my faith in
I flooded my sleeves as I drove home again

John Saw That Number lyrics - Neko Case

Old John the baptist, old John divine
Leather harness round his line
His meat was locust and honey
Wild honey lord, wild honey

John saw that number
Way in the middle of the air
Cryin' holy, holy to the Lord

Old John the baptist, old John divine
Frogs and snakes are gonna get John this time
God told the angel "go see about John"
So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist
Gathered wind in his fists so the stars round his wrists
Cryin' holy, holy to the lord

Read the revelations, you'll find him there
Third chapter, fourth verse where he said unto me
"There's a beast that rose out of the sea"
Ten crowns, ten crowns
On his horns write "blasphemy"
John couldn't read it (John couldn't read it)
Get on repeat it
John couldn't read it
Holy, holy to the Lord

There was a man, a pharisee
Who came by night to meet him
Said "I know thy teacher came from God cause no man can do such miracles
Without the lord to entreat him"
God told the angel "go see about John"
So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist
Gathered wind in his fists and the stars round his wrists
Cryin' holy, holy to the Lord
Holy, holy to the Lord
Holy, holy to the Lord...

Dirty Knife lyrics - Neko Case


So suddenly the madness came
With its whiskered, wolven, ether pangs
He locked the door
And shut the blinds
He laid down on the floor and he slept like iron
While the dirty knife worked deep
Into his spine
The blood runs crazy
The blood runs crazy

Cascading letters pool on the stairs
The grass is high, the cats are wild
You can't even touch the tip of their tails
And the blood runs crazy with giant strides

He sang nursery rhymes to paralyze
The wolves that eddy out the corner of his eyes
But they squared him frozen where he stood
In the glow of the furniture piled high for firewood

And the blood runs crazy with giant strides
And the woodsman failed to breech those fangs in time
So they dragged him through the underbrush
Wearing three winter coats and a dirty knife

[Ukrainian Part]

Lion's Jaws lyrics - Neko Case

You're gone, the trees are so quiet
When your hand was in my pocket
How they swayed from side to side
Now the meddling sky and my snowy eye
Sees a different night

The night I fell into the lion's jaws
To my regret and your delight

Those teeth themselves could not divine
Nor their pressure estimate
The haze I wish to never break
And to never contemplate

Momentum for the sake of momentum
Momentum for the sake of momentum
Of momentum

Maybe Sparrow lyrics - Neko Case

Maybe sparrow you should wait
The hawks alight till morning
You'll never pass beyond the gate
If you don't hear my warning

Notes are hung so effortless
With the rise and fall of sparrow's breast
It's a drowning dive and back to the chorus

La di da di da di da
La di da di da di da

Oh my sparrow it's too late
Your body limp beneath my feet
Your dusty eyes cold as clay
You didn't hear my warning

Maybe sparrow it's too late
Moonlight glanced off metal wings
In a thunderstorm above the clouds
The engine hums a sparrow's phrase
For those who cannot hear the words
For those who will not hear the words
For those who will not hear the words

La di da di da di da
La di da di da di da

Maybe sparrow
Maybe sparrow
Maybe sparrow

At Last lyrics - Neko Case

I can say that I've lived here in honor and danger
But I'm just an animal and cannot explain a life
Down this chain of days I wished to stay among my people
Relation now means nothing, having chosen so defined

And if death should smell my breathing
As it pass beneath my window
Let it lead me trembling, trembling
I own every bell that tolls me

The Needle Has Landed lyrics - Neko Case

Here I am in traffic's slow flow
Where the needle touched down
Carbon planes draw a cage round the air force base
Where the needle touched down
My foot on the brake it's ok to fly low
Over poor Spanaway

An eagle swooped down from a semi-trailer
Took the name of your town from a sharp-toothed freighter
The needle's the same that recorded and played
When you left me at the greyhound the year I moved away
And if I knew then what's so obvious now
You'd still be here baby
My baby, baby

So that's why I never come back here
That's why they spit out my name
Your ex's have clawed up the bible
Trying to keep me away
With the sledge of tectonic fever
The needle has landed again
Let it play

And the needle touched down
The needle is landing
And the needle touched down
The needle is landing

An eagle swooped down from a semi-trailer
Took the name of your town
From a sharp-toothed freighter
And if I knew then what's so obvious now
You'd still be here

album: "The Tigers Have Spoken" (2004)

If You Knew lyrics - Neko Case

And if you knew what I know
You wouldn't go to see her
And least of all believe her when she says that she wants you
Well you're just another puppet, she's not even keeping score
And the lazy way she cheats you leaves me cold
She'll laugh about you, my best friend, but you don't know

'Cause if you knew what I know
You wouldn't go to see her
And least of all believe her when she says that she wants you

She spends her daddy's money
And she drives her daddy's car
And what's crazy is the way you think that's style
And all the while my heart is breaking
You're not even on her mind (?)

'Cause if you knew what I know
Babe you wouldn't leave me
You wouldn't turn away from my love it's what you said that you believed in

I say this as your friend
You'll be the poor boy in the end

Soulful Shade Of Blue lyrics - Neko Case

Dressmaker, dressmaker,
I'm singing at the hall next saturday night and he'll be there.
He's been gone for so long, I want him back again,
Make me the sweetest dress you can.

Make it a soulful shade of blue with a ribbon at the hem,
A ribbon white for loyalty to show that I remember when
A soulful shade of blue looked into my eyes
And tell him I want him back again

Dressmaker, dressmaker, don't make it loud or bright, just make it a sweet and gentle style
Then maybe he'll remember me it was not so long ago I'll miss his sweet and gentle smile

Make it a soulful shade of blue with a ribbon at the hem,
A ribbon white for loyalty to show that I remember when
A soulful shade of blue looked into my eyes
And tell him I want him back again

Make it a soulful shade of blue