Case Study ' Bonus Tracks!

POSTED: Friday, July 24, 2009, 2:00 PM

Filed Under: Music

Photo by Jason Creps

We talked to Neko Case about some of our favorite songs for the A&E section. The conversation continues.

'Margaret vs. Pauline'

[audio:http://stream.citypaper.net/music/margaret_vs_pauline.mp3]

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

Piano keys twinkle and cymbals exhale in this bitter torchy rock song from Fox Confessor brings the Flood, but it's also a sharp example of the way Neko Case can rock even at midtempo. I love the way the rhymes unfold so naturally: mistaken, lake, make-believe, fake. So pretty.

Says Case: 'These characters came from a story in a book. Pauline was the 'good one,' and very uninteresting. I felt so much for the 'bad one,' Margaret, that I really wanted to write a song for her. Most ladies I know feel like a 'Margaret.' Garth's piano on this song really made it come together. This song was written the quickest cause I was so pissed for Margaret.'

'Fox Confessor brings the Flood'

[audio:http://stream.citypaper.net/music/fox%20confessor%20brings%20the%20flood.mp3]

Driving home I see those flooded fields
How can people not know what beauty this is?

We named the first four songs for this, and asked Case to pick the fifth. It's probably the most ominous and desperate song on the ominous. desperate album to which it lends its title. The lyrics are quick to color outside the lines, and the whole song creeps to a halt when it comes to this strange, wonderful, strange moment: 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.'

Says Case: 'This is my favorite, but no one really likes it much. It is odd, but I wrote it for my grandma. I always think of her.'

Neko Case, Wed., July 29, $35, 8 p.m, with Jason Lytle, Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-790-5800.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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