You Can Take That As A Compliment

The New Pornographers “Cat and Mouse with the Light”

Carl Newman has been lucky enough to write songs for Neko Case to sing for over two decades, and in that time his approach to deploying her as a lead vocalist has changed. Early on she was mainly used for firepower and intensity, belting out hooks in songs like “Letter From An Occupant” and “The Laws Have Changed” like the vocal equivalent of stomping on a fuzz pedal. Over the course of the middle period New Pornographers records Case added gravitas and/or earthiness to ballads, often singing lyrics about Newman’s personal life and marriage that he may have wanted distance from, if just to avoid sounding sappy and sentimental. Or maybe it’s just that something in the grain of Case’s voice unlocks feelings in songs that Newman can write but not as fully inhabit as a vocalist.

I think that’s the case in “Cat and Mouse with the Light,” a mid-tempo ballad with an arrangement that sounds like trying to represent the fizziness of a freshly cracked can of seltzer water with keyboards and saxophones. The lyrics express a lot of cynicism and self-doubt, addressed to someone – a partner, a child? – who holds the singer in high regard, which they don’t understand at all. “I can’t stand that you love me, you love me, you love me,” Case sings, starting the phrase with a slight peevishness, but conveying something closer to gratitude by the third “you love me.” I can imagine Newman singing this part and it either sounding too pretty or too resentful. Case imbues the song with warmth as well as ambiguity, making you question how much she really means the more harsh or distancing lines. She places the emotional emphasis on the character pushing people who love them away, almost smug in the notion that they’d only disappoint them. The way she sings that last “you love me” is the crack in the armor, the tell at the poker table.

Buy it from Bandcamp.