Jack White on The White Stripes song that predicted the future
Jack White has done a great deal with his career. Whether that is playing in bands such as The White Stripes, The Dead Weather, and The Raconteurs or releasing a lot of great music by himself, there is no denying that the guitarist has a lot to be proud of. While the majority of what he looks back on consists of hard-hitting melodies, screaming choruses, and blues-like guitar solos, there are some aspects that are a little bit more… out there.
A lot of White’s music is timeless. When you hear a track like ‘Seven Nation Army‘, it doesn’t matter if you are listening now or when the song initially came out in 2003; people will be singing along and dancing. Some of White’s music goes one step further than that, though, as another White Stripes song has proven itself to be ahead of its time in both sound and lyricism.
‘Icky Thump’ was released in 2007 and is a heavy but slow-moving track. Relying on pounding bass in the verse and a distorted riff with guitar solos in the chorus, the track straddles a strange line as it’s both minimalist and maximalist. There wasn’t much like it at the time, but modern electronic music follows a similar pattern. In that sense, the song predicted, in some aspects, the future of music. However, it also did a lot more than that.
The first time you listen to the lyrics on ‘Icky Thump’, it’s likely you’ll only pick up one or two sentences. White sings very quickly in a metaphor-laden commentary that can be tough to take in. That being said, when you break down some of what White is saying, a lot of his lines feel futuristic.
A lot of the lyricism discusses immigration, which, of course, was a talking point in 2007 but has been a subject in strict contention for some time since, with the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidency. White talks about the process of immigration in the track and references the fact that all Americans descend from immigrants somewhere down the line. These are topics that would be brought up a great deal years later as the topic was debated by governments.
Stretching beyond the lyrics, White even planned on shooting a music video that involved having a great wall expand across Mexico. “The Wall” was also a huge point of interest when Donald Trump was running for president, as it was one of his most quoted and controversial points when running.
“It talks about immigration and the idea that we’re all immigrants in America, in one way or another,” said White, reflecting on the lyrics, “I had this idea about having the Great Wall of Mexico in the music video. That ended up being a thing Donald Trump campaigned on and still preaches about.”
He continued: “There was a sentiment that was happening out there at that time – I heard a lot of talk about anti-immigration, just talking to people in the area. So, that ended up being a real, large, and gigantic thing that the entire world started to hear about because of the Trump later years.”
