Tami Neilson – Neon Cowgirl
Tami Neilson – Neon Cowgirl
Format: CD – Vinyl Lp – Digital
Label: Outside Music
Release: 2025
Release date: July 11, 2025
The Neon Cowgirl, towering over Broadway like the patron saint of heartbreak in downtown Nashville as she smiles coyly over her shoulder in red cowboy boots, watched me grow up
Neon Cowgirl represents a lifelong dream of chasing Nashville and country music. I’ve loved her my whole life, even when she breaks my heart over and over again
This album came rumbling to life on six wheels over the highways of North America. I wanted our children, born and raised in NZ, to get a taste of their Neilson family heritage – a five month pilgrimage from coast to coast and back again in a 36 foot RV. It was also my once-in-a-lifetime chance to really give it my all with my career, which I’d built slowly and steadily in small 2-3 week increments over a decade, running back and forth from the other side of the world.
Then, only two months before our trip, I landed in the hospital for a month, battling for my life in ICU with sepsis. Our trip changed from one of me going full throttle to make a good dent in my career to one of recovery and slow healing. It became a time of embracing life fully and savoring the precious time with my family in a way one does only after a near-death experience. We zig-zagged across the country, from the ghostly halls of Graceland to the technicolor desert of Salvation Mountain, across neon graveyards in Las Vegas to driving alongside herds of buffalo in Montana. I collected the seeds for these songs in each place along the way. When they blossomed, there were crossbreeds of Presley and Patsy, Orbison and kd lang- the blues of Memphis, the twang of Texas, the cinematic torch of Judy Garland on a Hollywood soundstage.
This record became a love letter to my Neon Cowgirl. Or, more accurately, a lovelorn letter. Because she’ll just keep on breaking a foolish heart if you let her. — Tami Neilson, Spring 2025
Website: https://www.tamineilson.com/
Tracks:
01. Foolish Heart (3:46)
02. Salvation Mountain (2:55)
03. Neon Cowgirl (3:24) feat Neil Finn
04. Borrow My Boots (2:40) feat Ashley McBryde, Grace Bowers & Shelly Fairchild
05. Love Someone (2:46)
06. Keep On (3:18) feat The Secret Sisters
07. You’re Gonna Fall (2:31) feat JD McPherson
08. Heartbreak City, USA (2:58)
09. Loneliness of Love (4:24)
10. U-Haul Blues (2:44)
11. One Less Heart (3:18)