Jack White’s favourite song to perform live: “You can’t follow that!”
Every now and again, a song will come along that – for whatever reason – captures something in the public’s imagination. It’s a rare occurrence, but when it happens, these tracks take on a life of their own, often eclipsing the original artists who concocted them. A prime example of this phenomenon is The White Stripes’ 2003 single ‘Seven Nation Army’, which has never really left the world’s collective consciousness since its release, belted out on a weekly basis on the terraces of football grounds and sports stadiums across the globe.
Like much of The White Stripes’ discography, the track is built around a simple guitar riff imbued with garage rock greatness. Composed by Jack White back in 2002, the band reportedly never gave a second thought to the track, certainly not awarding it more importance than any of the other songs that made up their 2003 album Elephant. After its release, however, the melody was quickly adopted and adapted by football fans in Europe, soon spreading worldwide.
Football fans have a long history of adapting popular melodies to fit personalised chants. Everything from the synthpop of The Human League to traditional Christian hymns has been belted out on the terraces over the years, but ‘Seven Nation Army’ seemed to have a staying power not afforded to many. Seemingly, this came as something of a shock to Jack White, who revealed, “It was just another one of the songs. We were way more interested in two or three other songs on that album at the time,” adding, “The label didn’t want to put it out as a single.”
Luckily, White was able to convince the label XL Recordings of the song’s potential, but even he could not predict the life the song would lead as a chant. “I cannot understand why this is happening,” White said, “People are chanting melody and not singing words – which is strange.” Regardless of its second life, which has long outlasted The White Stripes themselves, White never lost his appreciation for playing the track live.
Jack White has an incredibly broad and varied discography, illustrated by fantastic solo releases like Lazaretto and Blunderbuss, as well as the beloved work he created during his tenure with The White Stripes. Therefore, choosing a setlist must be something of a difficult task for White, but it seems as though ‘Seven Nation Army’ is something of an inevitability.
It seems a no-brainer that the song would be a favourite track for White to perform, given the fact that the majority of people already know the song, even if they do not consider themselves to be particular fans of the musician. “It’s good to make it the last song of the night, I’ll tell you that much,” White shared to Q with Tom Power, “You can’t follow that. As a songwriter, you couldn’t ask for more. It’s a gift from heaven.”
The genius of the song lies in its simplicity, which gives it a distinct ear-worm quality. The distinctive melody also means that the song transcends language, making it a perfect encore track to perform around the world, as the limitations of the English language do not bind it.