The Harder I Fight the More I Love You by Neko Case (2025) “It’s funny how our desires can cut a memory groove like on a record.” Neko Case was born to two teenage kids in Washington State, and as it so often goes for young parents, they did not stay together too long into Case’s childhood. Surviving on very little, Case was often left alone to entertain and fend for themselves, growing up “small and grubby, and that was okay because every kid I played with was small and grubby, too. We were all scrappers, all of us from families with no money.” When their parents separated, Case’s mother moved out and Case would visit her weekly. After staying at their grandmother’s one day, Case was picked up by their father and was told that their mother had died. She had been sick with cancer and simply didn’t want to put them through all the trauma. The family let Case know their mother was cremated and a wake had been held. Days were filled with despair and loneliness after this loss. A daughter to a distant and emotionally unavailable father, Case was left to deal with all of their pain in solitude, surviving and trying to piece together their sadness alone. This trauma was flipped upside down when Case’s father revealed, “OK, I don’t want you to be afraid. Your mommy …’ Then he paused, as if unsure how to proceed. ‘Your mommy is back, and I don’t want you to think she is a ghost.” Events like the loss and reappearance of their mother and instances of blatant neglect and poverty create gloomy shadows throughout Case’s memoir. Yet, despite this ever-present hardship, Case punctuates their story with tiny slices of light: The day Case wished so hard to see a horse and two seemingly magically appeared in an alleyway. Being shown love from a mother of a friend who arranged for the two young girls to participate (and win) a local horse show. Running around wild with their cousins at the Northwest Washington Fair where their grandmother worked in the summer, getting to No. 145 witness the exhilarating demolition derby. Case’s story is filled with magical moments, unbelievable twists, and adversity akin to the fairy tales they were so attached to as a kid. The perpetual betrayal from their mother, a woman Case struggled to let go of despite the abuse and refusal of love, led to Case’s ability to persevere, survive and eventually thrive in their music career. Despite the bleak circumstances of their upbringing, Case’s story remains light, scrappy and full of life. A candid look at the beginnings of an iconic musician, Neko Case’s memoir holds the same power as their legendary songwriting. Murder Ballads: Illustrated Lyrics & Lore by Katy Horan (2025) A dark staple in folk music tradition, the murder ballad is often a slow and eerie telling of a killing through song. More often than not, these were deeply rooted in misogyny, racism, and messaging that steering from the virtuous path leads to a violent and untimely death. Katy Horan examines the history behind popular songs that trace their origins back hundreds of years in Murder Ballads: Illustrated Lyrics & Lore, an elegantly illustrated and documented 2025 release. Horan works through research and centuries of musical alterations to distill the roots and evolution of each song documented in the collection. A track like “In The Pines,” famously performed in 1993’s MTV Unplugged by Nirvana and attributed to Lead Belly during that performance, has origins in Appalachia. This earliest version was titled “Black Girl,” and the refrain was altered in later versions to “my girl.” Additionally, various releases and rewrites incorporate a train accident which include a decapitation, displaying the expansive universe of variations one ballad took through time. Each of the songs covered by Horan include the lyrics of one of the traced versions of the murder ballad and a beautifully drawn image of the themes in a sparse and symbolic folk tradition. An endlessly fascinating dive into a historic song form, Katy Horan’s exploration is a captivating look at a beloved musical tradition. Hana Zittel
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