Neko Case - Deep Red Bells

I'm co-opting this one, since we don't have a song of our own yet; or at least, not a good one. It's 3 years today, if you didn't know.

In the 80's in Tacoma, the Green River Killer was still just a phantom to the young women of the area, a cautionary tale about being picked up by strange men on the highway. Of course, the monster turned out to be a pasty factory worker with a dodgy mustache - he escaped the death penalty by agreeing to cooperate with investigators on the unsolved murders that they couldn't directly pin on him, but he'll never get out of prison and he'll never murder another girl. That fear though, that psychic wound that people like him inflict on their community, that lasts much longer than they do.

Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You

Neko Case is probably best as using her voice to create an almost Brian Eno-like soundscape, equal parts terrifyingly stark and beautiful. It echoes the American Southwest in a lot of ways, actually, or anywhere it's almost too flat to drive at night. In this song, her vocals are paired with a perfect guitar, operating to set the rhythm of a tornado, slowly and hazardously gaining power.
Someone important to me insists that there is a metaphor in this song, but I'd really prefer to think that there isn't, that it is exclusively about a tornado who falls in love, and wants to show her affection by chasing down the object of her affection, and demonstrating her power ("your rails have always outrun mine...") as a promise of protection. This tornado is a bit like the clouds that rain down on Rob McKenna; she has no idea how much damage her love does.
Anyway, this is a pretty decent live performance of a terrific song.

The Shangri-Las - Train From Kansas City

"I don't know what else I can do."

Bad Girls! Tragic love! The train! Drum bits that shout like a train! This song has it all.

LastFm will let you hear the whole song, on the right.

Bonus Neko Case live cover (you can also hear it on her album The Tigers Have Spoken):