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.
No comments:
Post a Comment