Brian Wilson had cars and surfboards. Lou Reed had transients and smack. Neko Case, another instinctive songwriter with identifiable lyrical obsessions, has weather and animals. That's considerable symbolic acreage, yet Case -- like Wilson and Reed, to name a couple of past masters -- compresses detached observation and wet hunger into distinctive miniatures. (And her gift for melodic surprise rivals even the old Beach Boy's polished touch.) Tides and floods and tornadoes, tigers and foxes and b
Neko Case blew into town Sunday night and made sure to perform one of the highlights of her new album: a cover of Harry Nilsson's heartbreaker "Don't Forget Me." Commenter DLC then asked for a brief on Nilsson. So, thanks to a grant from the Nilsson Education Foundation, here's a quick lesson in the late singer-songwriter's towering awesomeness.
I. Songs Schmongs
"Don't Forget Me"
Duh. The original is pretty affecting on its own. Part of the power of Case's cover is that one of its intended
