Neko Case Quotes:

Country music is completely punk-rock. It's the original punk-rock.

Topics: Country, Rocks, Punk

If you want to be noticed as a drop of water, why would you move to the ocean?

source: - Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. October 14, 2013.

Topics: Moving, Ocean, Water, Drop Of Water

I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.

Topics: Hypocrite, Way, Would Be, Hypocrit

People get strange about whether you've written your own songs, which seems really stupid considering that, especially in Country Music, it's about oral tradition and passing things on and the songs weren't meant to be played by one person and then forgotten.

Topics: Country, Song, Stupid, Oral Tradition

I remember people would talk about Country Music like it was this sexist, lame thing. Well, no, because Dolly Parton is writing songs and playing her guitar and producing. She's doing it all and she's got hits on the radio.

Topics: Country, Song, Writing

The most tender place in my heart is for strangers. I know it's unkind, but my own blood is much too dangerous.

source: - Song: Hold On, Hold On, Album: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, 2006

Topics: Heart, Blood, Stranger

Playing in an independent rock band will eventually make you equal parts truck driver, gladiator and mule. Glamour is for those with trust funds.

Topics: Independent, Rocks, Band, Rock Bands, Truck Driver

What drug will keep night from coming?

Topics: Night, Drug

The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight. The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You.

source: - "The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You". Studio album by Neko Case, September 3, 2013.

Topics: Love You, Fighting, Harder

There's just kind of a sweetness about Canadians. Americans are a little more pushy, I mean, in a way that I enjoy - they're basically pushy because of their enthusiasm - we're a lot clumsier than other people.

Topics: Mean, People, Littles, Pushy

The Bible tries to make humans not animals the whole time. I think it's a bit of a mistake.

Topics: Mistake, Thinking, Animal

If I could ever be on a Missy Elliott record, I could then die. Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige - I love hearing them interviewed, I love the way they talk about their art. They're very self-assured, they're funny, they're inviting. I love it.

Topics: Art, Self, Records, Inviting, Mary J Blige

I know that I can sing really loud. It's like having that really big Evinrude engine on the back of your fishing boat. But I've been trying to be more dynamic with my voice, and not just singing on 10 all of the time out of terror.

source: - "Neko Case Surges Forward with 'Flood'". "Morning Edition" with Ashley Kahn, www.npr.org. March 28, 2006.

Topics: Fishing, Voice, Singing, Fishing Boats

I don't feel nervous or fearful when I'm on stage.

Topics: Nervous, Stage, Feels

Everybody in my band is married, pretty much, and have lives at home, and I don't want them to be away from their families so long that they just start to feel psychotic. You have to go home and stand around in your bathrobe doing your dishes to feel like a normal person sometimes.

Topics: Home, Long, Band

I think I've kind of been mistaken for somebody who's trying to be a spokesperson for animal rights, and the fact is I'm not qualified to be a spokesperson. I am passionate about it, but I'm not trying to make other people do what I do.

Topics: Animal, Thinking, Rights

I didn't want to be the girl who posed in 'Playboy' and then - by the way - made some music.

Topics: Girl, Want, Way

I don't know anybody who doesn't hate being called alt.country. It just sounds like a website. I don't mind being called Americana, I don't mind being called country noir, or independent country is fine, but the words alt.country make me insane.

Topics: Country, Hate, Independent, Independent Country, Americana

I grew up with lots of animals and I related more to them than I did to people. I feel a lot of empathy for them.

source: - "Neko Case defies easy categorization". www.today.com. March 4, 2009.

Topics: Animal, People, Empathy

I just want to make stories. They don't have to have a moral or a reason. There might be some mild cautionary notes, but they're not moral. They don't impart any Judeo-Christian ethic of any kind.

Topics: Christian, Stories, Want, Christian Ethics

I try not to be overly literal. When I'm writing songs, I write down a lot of words, and then I try to simplify it. I like to give people hints or words that make visual pictures for them.

Topics: Song, Writing, Giving

The men who have gotten women pregnant need to be accountable if we are. If we are going to jail, the men are coming too. Religious rhetoric will bite its own ***** trying to nail only women in a two-person process.

Topics: Religious, Men, Two

I really wanted to find a piano for the farm house. There were so many free pianos on Craigslist, I thought, 'Let's get as many free pianos as we can and stick them all in the barn.' I got eight in a short period of time, only six of which were tunable, but it's still quite funny.

Topics: Piano, Eight, House, Craigslist

I just really dig feeling subservient to nature. It brings me a peace and calm. Kind of like a Faustian thing, I think.

Topics: Thinking, Feelings, Calm

I tried to have more than one emotion on the record.

Topics: Records, Emotion

I think my songwriting might be a little more on the darker side maybe.

Topics: Thinking, Might, Sides, Darker Side

Everyone has to kind of fend for themselves.

Topics: Kind

I should have been an abortion. The only reason I wasn't was that my father was a Christian.

Topics: Christian, Father, Abortion

You can't just play the same thing, over and over again.

Topics: Play

All I want to do is sing on other people's records.

Topics: People, Want, Records

I want to get away from the social vampires in Tucson. The people who have no lives of their own and meet me and know who I am and feel entitled to say negative things. I have good friends here, especially in the bands. But a lot of it is just like high school.

Topics: School, Good Friend, Who I Am, Tucson

I have this typical Ukrainian face. Even people who know my music don't recognize me most of the time, thank God.

Topics: People, Thank God, Faces, Ukrainian

I have a real dog-like mentality, in that it's like, 'Where is my next meal coming from? Am I ever gonna eat again? Will I ever write another song again? Will anyone show up for tour?' I think it comes from being really poor as a kid.

Topics: Song, Dog, Real

There's no grand excellence to it. In my experience it was just almost the gulaggy boringness of it that'll kill you. You're just in this murk. And you're with other humans, but you lose all your human skills and it's just like you're in this plastic bag and you can't quite connect with people. You lose your ability to transmit electricity or something, and to receive it.

Topics: Depression, Skills, People, Plastic Bags, Transmit

We don’t need more ‘What if the mother is going to die’ debated, we need ‘I had an abortion because I was not ready to be a mother. It was my choice and my right. I own it. Back the f@#( up.

Topics: Mother, Choices, Abortion

I'm too small for the universe to revolve around me. It is a huge relief!

Topics: Relief, Huge, Universe

We shouldn't censor ourselves based on the weak idea of "looking cool." It's such a waste of potential awesomeness.

source: - Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

Topics: Ideas, Waste, Awesomeness

You're not supposed to totally know what's happening. The songs are supposed to give you clues so you can fill in the blanks.

source: - Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. April 10, 2006.

Topics: Song, Giving, Clue

A live show is one of the last holdouts of a thing that makes you feel a part of a community, where you'll go and maybe meet your future wife or boyfriend, or you're taking your sister to her first show. These are the things that you remember later in your life.

Topics: Wife, Community, Remember

I try to think of the songs as little movies. They're always pretty visual to me. I can always sort of see them. I don't always know what the end result is going to be, and I don't know exactly what it's going to sound like, but I can kinda see them.

source: - Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 23, 2009.

Topics: Song, Thinking, Trying

I always end up working with people that do a really good job, so I'm the only one that I'm worried about disappointing me, not the musicians ever.

Topics: Jobs, People, Musician

Around 2010, I kind of looked up and said, I'm 40 years old. You know, I chose music. I don't have a husband. I don't have any kids. Like, I chose music. So, I had to make a decision. Like, do I want to do something else, or do I want to go from journeyman to master? And I realized, I want to be a really good musician.

source: - Source: www.pbs.org

Topics: Husband, Kids, Decision

Making music makes me feel vulnerable in the best possible way. It gives me a feeling of balance.

source: - Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

Topics: Giving, Feelings, Balance

I don't think it's important for everyone necessarily, and I totally respect that because everyone writes differently.

Topics: Writing, Thinking, Important

I have a pathological fear of getting my picture taken.

source: - Source: www.avclub.com

Topics: Taken, Picture Taken

I like driving. I'm a real sucker for driving across North America - I never get sick of it, ever.

source: - Source: www.avclub.com

Topics: Real, America, Sick

Rich kids who write songs about food stamps always piss me off. I'm not going to write any songs about that, either.

source: - Source: www.motherjones.com

Topics: Song, Kids, Writing, Rich Kids

It's like sometimes, you can just lay back and it takes the pressure off of you.

Topics: Pressure, Sometimes, Lays

Sounds like to have space sometimes. It's good to give yourself a variety, or you just fatigue your ear. Like if somebody sings in the same register all the time, or if it's got the same feel the whole way through, I just find I get fatigued, so it's nice to break it up.

source: - Source: www.avclub.com

Topics: Nice, Space, Giving

When you live in a lot of places, you can't help but have them become part of you. Technically, I am a Southerner, but I did not grow up in the South. So I'm a Southerner by accident, but a Washingtonian.

source: - Source: www.motherjones.com

Topics: Growing Up, Helping, Grows

I think I have a lot of empathy for animals and nature in general. Those things just make me comfortable. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, around a lot of animals. I feel for them.

source: - Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 23, 2009.

Topics: Animal, Thinking, Empathy

There's not like a science to it, necessarily, but I'm also the kind of person who spends a long time in the studio. I will spend my entire advance just getting it done, which is probably stupid, but I don't have extravagant taste. I mean, I paid for it, so there you go. Why not? The recording process is also very fun.

source: - Source: www.avclub.com

Topics: Fun, Stupid, Mean

The only ones that stand out to me are people like Jonathan Richman or Robyn Hitchcock, who can make you totally cry while their music is so funny and they're hilarious. They know they're great but they also don't think they're better than you and they really invite you into their show.

Topics: Thinking, People, Cry

Being the boss of your own career, you get used to having veto power and getting what you want, or as close to what you want as you have mapped out.

source: - Source: www.pbs.org

Topics: Boss

Every band wants to go believe me, not everybody makes it, but they want to.

Topics: Believe, Band, Want

I like to think that I'm not old yet.

Topics: Thinking

When you're making records, you develop, and so you hear the things you want to move away from. It stings a little, but you know, you gotta own it too. You've got to just go, "You know, I wasn't afraid to learn in front of people, so I give myself a little credit for not being afraid of anything."

source: - Source: www.avclub.com

Topics: Moving, People, Giving

When you get an idea, it's not going to be a great idea until you push it. You’ve got to push it until it’s uncomfortable. And then you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Does my project say to my audience what I want it to say?’ ”

Topics: Ideas, Doe, Want

I once asked a studio guy in Toronto, "How many people don't use auto tune?" and he said, "You and Nelly Furtado are the only two people who've never used it in here." Even though I'm not into Nelly Furtado, it kind of made me respect her. It's cool that she has some integrity.

Topics: Integrity, People, Guy

Dream dictionaries are so disappointing. They're so limited, and I think they're just total bullshit. I really do. I don't know much about the Freudian theory of dreams; it's probably more interesting than your average hippie dream dictionary, but it's got to be a lot deeper than that. It can't all be about sex all the time, so I don't know if Freud is right either.

source: - Source: music.avclub.com

Topics: Dream, Hippie, Thinking

I want the recording process to be a time in my life that I will remember.

source: - Source: pitchfork.com

Topics: Remember

I was raised to be modest to the point of fanaticism. In my family, we don't talk about ourselves to each other. Vanity is considered the worst possible sin. I've gotten better about having to describe things. If you're going to make a record and people are going to write about you, it's your responsibility to answer questions. It's validating - I'm just very clumsy.

Topics: Writing, Responsibility, People

I have a hard time taking myself seriously. My band the New Pornographers doesn't take me seriously, which is why I love them. We can't stand up there and pretend. What we're doing is really important to me and it's my job and I love it, but I can't just stand there unflinchingly noble in front of the audience.

Topics: Hard Times, Important, Audience

There's this art form in songwriting that's incredibly difficult - to be really funny in a song and also really touching. I can't do that.

Topics: Song, Art, Touching

There are things about the production I'm not crazy about though. People mix records to be heard in cars and to have the bass incredibly loud so the vocals have to fight with everything so there's no dynamic left, and that's kind of a bummer. That may not be my taste but I'm not going to go, "Kanye's not very good," because he's pretty badass. It's a difference in taste, like the New Pornographers and myself have different taste in production as well but it all works out in the end.

Topics: Badass, Crazy, Fighting

I'm pretty self-conscious, so I tend to work in a way where I say what I need to say and get out rather than revisit things. It's kind of a collage style. I realized that it had more emotional weight that way. I'll always be in the developmental stages as far as being a songwriter.

Topics: Emotional, Style, Kind

I'm not very interesting. Birds are interesting. I could stand there lip-synching all day long, but it would feel funny, and people would be able to tell. I'm not a good actress.

source: - Source: www.avclub.com

Topics: Long, People, Interesting

I think if you're a lady playing a guitar, other ladies need to see you playing the guitar, and they don't need to see men come out and fix your equipment for you. It just looks incredibly pussy. So I just do it all myself.

Topics: Thinking, Men, Guitar

I get outside a lot. I am a huge champion of physical activity. It's so important.

source: - Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

Topics: Champion, Important, Physical Activity

The relationship of humans to nature. We are sadly divorced from it.

source: - Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

Topics: Divorced, Humans

Being in two full-time rock bands is pretty impossible. I love to tour but I have a dog and I want to see him. And, being a songwriter, you have to have experiences and do things. You can't just go on tour all the time, otherwise you get nothing to write about. It's finally at a point where the balance is perfectly right.

Topics: Dog, Writing, Balance