Neko Case Quotations

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Everyone has to kind of fend for themselves.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Growing up, my family was very, very into animals. Animals were treated like other people; they slept in the bed with you. I come from an agrarian background. That's how my family's fairy tales are structured, where animals have a lot of power. It gets into people's psyche.

If anybody knows about tragedy, it's Eastern Europeans.

My personal time is the same as my road time and my studio time. Personal time is working and touring. All my closest friends and family are already in the bands that I'm around, anyway.

I love touring, but it's because I don't go for very long at one time. If I don't spend enough time with my dog, I get pretty crabby.

I have a pathological fear of getting my picture taken.

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.

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

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 ass trying to nail only women in a two-person process.

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.

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?’ ”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

What drug will keep night from coming?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.