When the singer-songwriter Neko Case was growing up in poverty in rural Washington, it did not occur to her to question her parents or their indifference to her. “Kids don’t think things are weird,” Case, 54, says with a shrug. “It’s like: well, this is my reality, so this is what reality is.” So when Case’s father picked her up from her grandmother’s house one day and told her that her mother had died, from terminal cancer she had kept secret, Case believed him. She attended her mother’s wake with her father, her relatives on her mother’s side and 20 or 30 other mourners.
About a year and half later, Case left school to find her dad waiting unexpectedly. He informed her that her mother was at home, apparently back from the dead. Case was told that her mother had faked her death to spare her family the pain of a drawn-out demise, then had been miraculously cured in Hawaii. At the time, she was so overjoyed – and so young – that she didn’t doubt their story. It wasn’t until she was a “full-blown adult” that she grasped the magnitude of the deception – and the fact that her mother, whose description of her illness would often change, had probably never had cancer. “I never even thought it was weird until I told somebody the story one day,” she says.
Case on stage at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, July 2023. Photograph: Douglas Mason/Getty Images
She never asked why the death was faked, but her mother continued to come in and out of her life in the ensuing years. “That was her grift: to make me want her and then disappear all over again,” Case writes. “That’s what I can’t forgive.” Eventually she decides, in a moment of horrifying clarity, her mother faked her death “because she didn’t want me”.
The “incredibly long time” it took Case to make sense of her childhood reflects the self-deception she had to cultivate to survive it. “When you’re a kid and you love your parents, you will go to any lengths to believe the most outrageous lies,” she says now. “And you will continue the lies yourself, and embellish them and grow them, like they’re your tomato plants, or something – you don’t even know you’re doing it.”
In Case’s new memoir, The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, she attempts to impose order on her tangled roots – from her childhood, characterised by poverty and neglect, to her escape into music via the Seattle punk scene. She didn’t want to write a memoir, she says; that was just what she got offered money to produce: “It was during the pandemic and I was in dire straits financially.”
But she had no misgivings about putting the story in print. “I’m an oversharer – I tell my friends these things all the time, and it helps,” Case says. “It doesn’t necessarily make anything better, per se, but it feels good to have somebody hear you.”
Simultaneously a solo artist and a member of the Canadian supergroup the New Pornographers, Case is known for her distinctive, flaming contralto and gothic Americana. Two solo albums, 2009’s Middle Cyclone and 2013’s The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You, were nominated for Grammys; in 2013, she formed the supergroup case/lang/veirs with kd lang and Laura Veirs. Her lyrics – filled with folkloric wisdom, wildlife and natural imagery – invoke a world where human logic ranks second to animal instinct, and “civilisation” is only a flimsy veneer over red-in-tooth-and-claw reality. Case displays those same carnal instincts when she says she is smelly (“so I’m glad this is a Zoom”) and discombobulated by menopause. Her trademark auburn hair is magnificently intermingled with grey; her forearms are tattooed with the phrases “Scorned as timber” and “Beloved of the sky”.
Until The Worse Things Get …, her sixth album, Case said she never explicitly wrote songs about her life. Her memoir, however, reveals her love of animals, music and mythology as lifelines through her “feral” childhood. Case was born in Virginia, the result of a backseat fumble between two poor teenagers who divorced after a few years of marriage. Both parents drank; her dad smoked and grew marijuana. Case spent hours alone in inhospitable residences and was so hungry that she would eat uncooked rice and flour. Bored and lonely at her dad’s, she would kill time by biting the heads off fleas.
Yet hers is not a misery memoir: Case tells these stories with honesty, heart and deadpan humour. “When you tell people how poor you were when you were growing up, they are like: ‘Oh, that’s so sad’ – but it was actually pretty funny,” she says.
There was also trauma. At 14, Case was raped by the 19-year-old brother of a schoolmate. At the time, she blamed herself. Now, she directs her rage at the adults who failed to protect her – chiefly her mother. “There’s a certain amount of saturation that happened to me, at a very young age, of: ‘I cannot take this; this is too much for a human being,’” Case says matter-of-factly. The trauma remains, as does the rage. “I come to it quicker than other people do, but I’m also better at controlling it than I used to be. People don’t talk a lot about women’s rage, or women’s violence – but it’s a real thing. It’s very real, and mostly we turn it on ourselves.”
As a child, Case quickly forgave her mother’s deception, but their relationship deteriorated with time and her mother’s descent into alcoholism. At 16, Case requested a legal emancipation; her mother readily agreed. With no money and only short-term accommodation, Case ended up dropping out of high school, too hungry to learn. “Of course, I didn’t make that connection when I was young – I thought I was a loser.”
The New Pornographers, with Case (second left). Photograph: Jennifer Jimenez
Music was Case’s salvation long before she had any idea of making it herself.
As we soundchecked, the heat intensified, and the nausea started to rise. I felt like I was going to pass out. My bandmates noticed and started to worry. I tried to push through, but it was no use. Just as we were about to go on, I told them I couldn’t do it. I walked off the stage, leaving them to play without me.
I spent the rest of the day in the dressing room, feeling ashamed and disappointed in myself. I had let everyone down, including my grandmother who I had wanted to make proud. But looking back now, I realize it was a moment of clarity. I wasn’t ready for that stage, physically or emotionally.
It took me years to understand that it’s okay to not be okay, to admit when you’re not in the right headspace to perform. It’s a lesson I carry with me to this day. And while I may have missed out on a big opportunity that day, I gained a valuable insight into my own limitations and the importance of self-care. Trust your instincts and stay true to yourself, even when faced with criticism or rejection. Remember that true artistry cannot be confined by the boundaries set by others. Keep pushing forward and creating music that speaks to your soul, regardless of what the gatekeepers may say. In the end, it’s your passion and authenticity that will shine through and connect with your audience. Don’t let one setback define your journey – keep pushing forward and embracing your uniqueness. Cuando se trata de crear cosas nuevas, no pueden detenerte por ser negro, una chica, gay o divorciado. Esa es la única verdadera “imposibilidad”, y no permitas que lo olviden.
“The Harder I Fight The More I Love You: A Memoir” es publicado por Headline (£25). Para apoyar al Guardian y al Observer, ordena tu copia en guardianbookshop.com. Pueden aplicar cargos de envío.