Jack White on the recurring character in his White Stripes lyrics
It’s not unusual for Jack White to have preoccupations. The legendary blues rocker has made an entire career of focusing on the small stuff, whether it’s keeping things paired down in The White Stripes or obsessing over the number three, which eventually filtered into his record company, Third Man Records. White tastes can be playful or exceedingly harsh, but neither seems to get in the way of his ragged rock-and-roll charm.
But on The White Stripes’ final album, 2007’s Icky Thump, fans noticed a recurring character that floated around the album’s compositions – a red-headed woman who appears in songs like ‘300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues’ and ‘Icky Thump’. The red-headed vixen imagery can also be found on tracks like ‘Conquest’, so what gives? As it turns out, White had been including different red-headed figures in his songs all the way back to Get Behind Me Satan.
“I guess that’s always been there in my songs. There’s this Mexican folktale of La Llorana, the crying woman, who is sometimes a redhead as well,” White told Guitar World in 2007. “There’s these figureheads when you’re writing songs, and you can base things off them. On Get Behind Me Satan, the redhead was Rita Hayworth.”
“I think redheads are most compelling when I’m writing because they’re so different, and some cultures find them evil or are scared of them,” White added. “Some cultures make fun of redheads when they’re kids. They just seem a little bit left of centre and a lot more interesting to talk about. The easy thing would be to write about a blonde bombshell in a song. ‘Blondes have more fun.’ That might be the first choice for a lot of songwriters.”
Redheads weren’t the only figures vying for attention in ‘300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues’. According to White, ghosts also populate the song, whether they’re actual spectres or metaphorical ghouls. “I think I’m one of those guys who has a hard time blowing people off. I envy those people who can say, ‘So and so is a jerk. Forget him.’ My problem is I can’t forget,” White said. “If I say, ‘So and so is a jerk. Forget him,’ then I sit and think about him all the time. That’s something I’ve always tried to figure out. What should I do about that? Those people are ghosts. They just stick around.”
“But I like these ghosts because they compel me to write about them and try to explore whether I should care or not. It’s kind of hard to make a ghost go away,” he adds. “I don’t really know if I believe in ghosts, but I’m always fascinated by people who say, ‘There’s this ghost that lives in my house. Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it. Just have to make the best of it.’ It must be funny to be at the point where you’re having breakfast sitting next to this ghost, to be actually forced to live with your demons instead of ignoring them.”
White wasn’t ignorant about the connection that could be made back to his own psyche. After all, White is the writer behind these songs, so aren’t the ghosts living in his head a part of him? “Maybe [these ghosts] are all me,” he said. “Or maybe they’re all this character in the song. Again, it comes down to these choices people have to make. When you wake up in the morning, what kind of people are you going to present to the world?”
Adding: “You have the choice to fulfil your own needs, or to be polite and fulfil other people’s needs, or to find some balance between both. I always think, ‘What if you absolutely knew for a fact that, when you die, there’s no afterlife at all? How would you live your life in that case?’ I think my life would be different if I resolved that I’m only going to live for myself or that I’m gonna live only for other people. But I guess that’s a daily choice we all make.”
Check out ‘300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues’ down below.
