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Tyler: Not a hard listen: “Calling Cards.” This song soothes me.

Peter: It’s great.

“I used a calling card at the pay phone!” This really is from a different era. It was released in 2013, but Neko’s Gen X, and it shows. Are you an old millennial? Have we been over this? I forget.

Tyler: I’m like right on the border of millennial and, what’s the gen, Y?  I live on my phone but I saw, like, batteries not included in the theater.

Peter: X! Gen X! Come on man.

The forgotten generation (apparently).

Tyler: Wasn’t there a Y between X and millennial?  Aren’t we all just fools at heart?

Peter: Oh… maybe. I don’t know.

Tyler: Well, I do remember calling cards, though I don’t have any from twenty years ago.

Such a sweet and warm and loving ode to friendship.  Love this tune.

Peter: Yeah, but it’s so bittersweet. Sadly smiling, as they say.

Gen Y says that. I think.

Tyler: Gen Y rocks “Barely Breathing,” by Duncan Sheik.

That’s gotta be pre-millennial.

Peter: I’m trying to remember it.

Tyler: The dude I believe wrote the book (look at me talking theatre!) for Spring Awakening, a musical I believe was a big deal.

Peter: Oh yes. I remember this song.

Tyler: “Calling Cards!” It’s lovely.

Peter: “Shooting satellites that blew up the pay phones,” is a great line. As is the one you mentioned, “I’ve got calling cards/from 20 years ago.” I’m at an age where the weariness in this song really resonates for me.

Tyler: I also am all about people saying things like “Every dial tone/every truck stop/every heartbreak/I love you more” to their loved ones.  The hope in “Calling Cards,” or at least the glimmer, comes from that human connection.  “Just to tell you how good it was to hear you/In those songs you wrote.”

Peter: It’s one of the prettiest songs on the album. Really good stuff.

Tyler: “City Swans” is also pretty in its breezy uptempo way.  Nice little tale of revisiting a lover and having a totally rewarding time.

I say that unironically.  Neko seems content in the company of her swan partner here.

Peter: I did not pick up on any of that. I do not feel qualified to be doing this now.

Tyler: Dude, this is Neko Case.  I could be wrong as hell.

I say that with love.

Peter: We talked a little about her lyrics last time. She uses a lot of vivid imagery, but the meaning of the songs is often elusive?

You also mentioned her voice the last time we talked. It really is something. And the production always has it pretty prominent in the mix. Or maybe it just feels that way because it’s naturally striking?

Tyler: It rings, that voice.

Peter: There’s something primal and wild about it, as well. Not that it sounds ragged. More like, untamed.

Majestic?

Tyler: Untamed is a perfectly Neko Case word for it.  Majestic, also.

Peter: Alright, will go with it. The next song is called “Afraid.”

This song is so weird. I like it a lot, but what’s going on here? I have no idea what this song is about. Ego death?

Tyler: Oh, I’m clueless.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Sometimes I can figure out—or think I can—what she’s after.  Sometimes I’ve got no idea.  Most of the time, though, the words are exquisitely chosen and evocative either way.

Peter: These lyrics. It’s like working with mercury. It’s high science.

Tyler: Case studies?

See what I did there?

Peter: “Local Girl” is next. This one’s great. The album starts and ends very strong. I mentioned a weariness in some of her lyrics, and you really feel that here.

“​I feel the weight of the needle’s repeat and sigh” is another great line. You can feel her sort of counting down her remaining days, and lamenting her wasted ones.

Tyler: And the backing vocals.  “You know you do/All of you/Shame on you/All of you lie” swooping in after the first bar of the refrain—not only does Neko know how to use her own voice, she’s aces at arranging those of others.

Peter: Yeah, that backing bit is great.

Tyler: Even more eccentric is the next one, our second-last track, “Where Did I Leave That Fire.”

The windup on this one is protracted—it’s more than a minute before her vocals chime in—and all kinds of abstract.  Plinks, plunks, piano, bowed bass, all mish-mashing and echoing.

Peter: I love this one. I actually prefer the atmospheric numbers on here to the rockers.

Tyler: They’re so good!  Entracing, you could say.

Nothing about “Where Did I Leave That Fire” is predictable.  It’s riveting.

Peter: It’s almost psychedelic at times.

Tyler: And then, to close down the show, we have “Ragtime.”

There is not a damn thing about this song that’s out of place.

Possibly my favorite Neko track.

Peter: It’s really good.

The imagery of the snow blowing sideways in the city, seemingly emanating from the streetlights, is really terrific.

Tyler: I saw her do this live ages ago.  For the horn part her backing vocalists just sang “ba-da-da-ba-da-da.”  Astoundingly, it worked.

Peter: I was going to say, the horns are great here.

Tyler: It’s got a bunch of defiant, self-assuring lines.  “I’ll reveal myself invincible soon” chief among them.

Peter: Yeah, but after the cocoon of depression or sadness or whatever. It’s coming out of a darkness.

Tyler: “I am useful and strange.”  You got that right, Neko Case.

Peter: Agreed.

Tyler: I suppose we owe the cat that meows at album’s end a shout-out.

Peter: I thought it was a dog!

Good god!

Tyler: Hey, maybe it’s a dog.  One of those meowing dogs.

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