Top 50 White Stripes Songs: Numbers 25-21

Alright, lets finish the job.

25. Little Cream Soda - Icky Thump

One of the most fun songs to play by the White Stripes, this song comes off their last album Icky Thump. All Jack wants is a little cream soda apparently, but the instrumentals tell a different story to the man saying 'Oh well' when nothing goes his way. It's loud, brash, obvious and you know where it's going but you love every second. It could open a set, it could close a set, it's a utility song. You could play it at a punk show, cover it at a pop show, and ruin it at a country show - it's a song of all trades. It's great live too.

24. The Same Boy You've Always Known - White Blood Cells

 

I always like to say that White Blood Cells is a series of tails that Jack is telling about his and Meg's love for one another. This is a charming little song that often goes over-looked in the discography, but in the context of this idea, it really is beautiful. We know that the two have struggled through one anothers' lives, but Jack (or whoever this character Jack may claim it is) wants to prove he is the same boy this girl's always known - for better or for worse.

23. Astro - The White Stripes

This certainly wasn't the first White Stripes song I heard (looking at you Seven Nation Army) but it was the first I loved. I was intrigued. What was the Astro? I assumed it was marijuana, connecting astro to grass, and grass to weed. But apparently it's about things people do in private that they don't want anyone else to know. Whatever Jack...Anyway, it's a great song that sums up the early stripes in their raw, primitive form. Two power chords and the truth, that's how the saying goes. They liked to pair this with a cover of Clarence Stacy's Jack The Ripper live - made famous by one Screaming Lord Sutch.

22. You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) - Icky Thump

  

What a mouthful of a song title. The glory of it is though, is that it is such a sing-along-able track that it doesn't matter. Once you warm to it, you'll be belting out the chorus three times a day as you prepare for that moment at Mr White's concert where he asks you take the mic. You arrive, you rock out, You Don't Know What Love Is comes on and you prepare. You recognise it's coming, he sings "You don't know what love is...", the music drops, and your voice cracks as you screech "You just do as you're told!". You slowly look around in embarrassment, mortified, and realise no-ones paying attention to you. There's a fucking show on. Great track,very single worthy, the video's sweet too. The above performance is something though. I'm not sure what, but, uh, wow it's something. 

21. The Union Forever - White Blood Cells

With a break that could have been lifted from Taylor Swift's 1989, The Union Forever is one of my favourite tracks. It's everything. An ominous tone and almost a denial from Jack. It's an epic tune in its story-telling sense, and comes just after the adorable Little Room. There's a certain element of relatability to it as well, as Jack preaches his view on love. He tells us plain and simple: "There is no true love!". "Well what is there?" we ask Jack in a shocked denial. No-one apparently, he proclaims that there isn't anyone perfect for us. We know Meg and Jack certainly weren't perfect with one another - they had more issues than a communist Nazi, but they were certainly in love, and sometimes, that's enough. True love doesn't exist, but love does exist with flaws and failures. That's what makes it beautiful.

See you next week.

Revolution is a funny thing

Around five years ago, what's come to be known as the Arab Spring kicked off in Tunisia. A man, I forget his name now, set himself on fire in protest of the government. After a few weeks this spread to Egypt, then Libya, Syria and Bahrain. This was one of my earliest moments of being politically aware - that a sea change was happening.

I had been writing a book a few years ago about the situation. I intended to finish it by the turn of the year, but I was young and more naive then than I am now. The book was entitled 'The Arab Revolution' and I had set everything in place. It was to be an account of the revolution in various countries, and would include the story of each uprising and their connections. I started with Tunisia, and finished that. Then I continued with the second chapter about Egypt. I was fully expecting the story in Arabia to end in a straightforward manner - to give me an ending - the leaders being deposed, and new ones installed. But no. The Libyan civil war happened. I was hoping for it to simply come to an end, so I could have my story. At some point I gave up waiting, knowing that what I'd have to write was simply building and building with every passing day. I even dedicated a chapter to the Siege of Misratah. Of course, I also intended to write about Syria - 'once the civil war was finished'.

The younger version of myself could never have predicted the absolute melee it would become. I had never learned of a situation as complex and tangled as the Syrian civil war as it is today. Towards the end of 2015, we saw a vote in the commons on whether to launch air strikes on ISIS targets in Syria. Someone made an excellent point. Some two years ago, a measure to launch air strikes on the Syrian government had been defeated. The governement who are effectively an enemy to ISIS. The man said that it was gesture politics, and that he prefers decisive action, not a gesture. This 'gesture' is in reference to the vote being called in the wake of the Paris attacks.

That moment it dawned on me that revolution is only sometimes something decisive and groundbreaking. Sometimes it truly does change and cause an establishment of progress. But in truth, most are just gestures. As we saw in Egypt - the unrest didn't just end after the removal of Mubarak. No, the man who was put in his place - Mohammed Morsi has been sentenced to death. In truth the revolution there, as in so many other places was just a gesture. A gesture of disapproval towards the government. Sometimes, that's solved in an election - but when discontent spreads so much and makes the population so fervent, it overwhelms the government.

..And suddenly, everyone is an expert on Britain's relationship with the EU

I am by no means an expert on Britain's relationship with the EU, but upon Mr Cameron's announcement that on June 23rd, we'll have a referendum on the UK's  membership, everyone from Jermaine Jenas to Boris Johnson are suddenly experts.

On a serious note, its become an interesting issue within the conservative party, with Michael Gove and, of course, Boris Johnson joining the leave campaign, whilst the rest of cabinet remains in the pro-EU camp, or at least Cameron hopes. It's also come to my attention that the pro-EU campaign is eloquently named Britain Stronger In Europe. Catchy, really rolls of the tounge that. The EU has been one of the most divisive issues within the UK ever since we first joined the EEC, remember that John Major bloke? At least within the conservatives there appears to be a deep and unrelenting split between the two sides.

At least something will be settled in this country soon, what with talk swirling of another Scottish independence referendum if they were to vote against what the wider country wants.