I think that the "tornado" is Neko.

What a beautiful song! There is so much build up to the chorus at the end.
It finally happens and then the song ends.
It leaves me wanting so much more.
I noticed Neko Case has such an amazing way of keeping the listeners attention.


*Side note*
The new album is so good.
Listen to it on NPR. It's on their website until the release date, March 3rd.

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indeed, the tornado IS meant a literal one (as Neko insists) but her playful resistance against metaphor throws us into a dichotomy, pitting us against the forces that run throughout this album: Nature and Nurture.

hudsucker's point is well-taken; Neko IS smart and this song is an extension of her "I don't write love songs" attitude... but Neko's resistance, strangely, reinforces the metaphor... in love and, especially, in love songs, we like to think in metaphors.. so a straightforward interpretation of this song would a man who is running away from a destructive relationship, hiding from a crazy, obsessed woman

but taken literally, we get a picture of love that is absurdly comic: a funnel of wind searching for its love, who is in hiding.. then we think 'how is this possible? a tornado loves?' -- for we know what happens when we love it and "come into the light" to meet it: we are gone, vaporized or smashed up like the transformers and trailers... thus, love becomes a hunt, a tragically sad and empty one ("carved your name across three counties," the path of destruction "sixty-five miles wide")..

the agony of unrequited love fuels the tornado's chase, but this obsession ultimately reveals a relationship in flight ("your rails have always outrun mine"), an escape from love's entrapment and disintegration... by the end of the song, "he" is safe from harm, "still warm and breathing"; our pained heroine/tornado is left alone and crying "What will make you believe me?"

as soon as we begin to laugh at this, we realize we've been thinking in metaphors all along... (have we been conditioned into thinking in metaphors? -- the "nurture"?) to love a tornado, we have to be prepared to die with it -- right? .. but, love as death, as a tornado, is the very thing we resist, and run away from...

thus, love becomes "literal" in this song.. it IS Nature -- formidable, destructive, unrelenting as IS the cyclone's eye...

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just had another thought, the tornado as love unrelenting... though we run to escape its destruction, it keeps rolling and twisting along ("so I picked them up and crashed them down") without fault... Neko may be making a distinction between the tornado/Nature, whose (love) continues, and the boy/humans, who love on condition, start/stop love on whim...

Just on a personal level, this song reminds me of myself when I was in my early twenties. My personal life was a whirlwind. I never stood still for long. Luckily, there weren't too many casualties.

Lyric correction:

I miss, I miss
the way you sigh yourself to sleep
when I breathe the springtime
across your cheek

The "souls dangling inside-out from their mouths" bit is particularly vivid. I've heard (though I think it's an urban legend) that being in the vaccuum inside a tornado can cause your lungs to be sucked out through your mouth and turned inside out.

Couple of lyrics corrections:

It's "left THEM motherless."

And
"How you'd sigh yourself to sleep
when I'd rake the springsteen
across your sheets."

It is, in fact, a literal tornado - a love song from a tornado's point of view. On the one hand, it's a serial killer - raking a trail of destruction and death in its quest to find this woman, killing and destroying to impress her, or at least convince her he's really in love with her. On the other hand, he's just acting like a tornado is SUPPOSED to act. You can empathize with the tornado's pain and confusion with the way Neko sings that first "what will make you believe me" at the same time as it's scaring the hell out of you. Neko's voice and phrasing makes most of her songs work, but I can't always pin down what's going on in them, narrative-wise. This is an exception, and I can't imagine anyone will write a better song than this one this year.

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These are the lyrics I hear:

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths
But it's never enough

I want you...

Carved your name across three counties
Grounded in with bloody hydes
Their broken necks will line the ditch
Till you stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
stop it
Stop this madness

I want you...

I have waited with a glacier's patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
Till nothing was standing
Sixty-five miles wide
Still, you are nowhere
Still, you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight

Come out to meet me
Run out to meet me
Come into the light

Climb the boxcars, to the engine
Through the smoke, into the sky
Your rails have always outrun mine
So I
Picked them up and crashed them down
In a moment close to now

Cause I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss

How you'd sigh yourself to sleep
When I'd rake the springtime
Across your sheets

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left the motherless, fatherless
Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths
But it's never enough

My love
I'm an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing

This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you

What will make you believe me?

This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you

What will make you believe me?

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I think of a mom desperately wanting her kid back, the kid is with the father or whoever. She's trying so hard but she's a total mess and in the back of her mind she knows even her kid knows it. She wants to prove how much she loves her child but ends up making herself look worse in the process because she leaves a path of destruction everywhere she goes (which is why she lost the kid in the first place) . A sad song, but still I think one of the best on this album.

changes posted

To me, this song is about the awful times in life that are sent to us as a gift of change for the good.

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Just a couple things: This song (which I can't get out of my head) reminds me quite a bit of Fast Train in that it anthropomorphizes the train as an object of affection, just as This Tornado Loves You becomes the obsessed, destructive, desperate ex-lover.

Also, I hear:

"I miss
I miss

How you'd sigh yourself to sleep
When I'd rake the springtime
Across't your sheets"

Minor difference, but much more poetic sounding, don'tcha think?

I think of the tornado as the terrible and great love of God, chasing after us since 'the fall'.
But the tornado is a clumsy way of killing people, which gives me the impression of the old testament
God, who was not opposed to 'Grounded in with bloody hydes' and 'smashed every transformer with every trailer till nothing was standing sixty-five miles wide'. God misses us and wants us back, but it turns out 'us' is personified as one person in particular. Also characteristic of the old testament God, as any one else who went to Sunday school will remember God had his favorites, namely David, who he loved above all others.

A heartbreaking song,
just my take on it.