Neko Case Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone has to kind of fend for themselves.

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

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.

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

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.