Some Songs Considered

“I’m Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman” – The White Stripes
(Words/music: Jack White and Meg White, available on White Blood Cells, V2 2001) 

AN OPEN LETTER TO JACK WHITE

Jack,

During my usual afternoon browsing of my subscriptions in Google Reader, New York Magazine’s Vulture blog pointed out something you said to the NME recently.  “In my head I’m still living and working as if there is no internet, and treat it as a nuisance.”  That word “nuisance” caught my attention, so I continued reading.  You added that “The internet is a beautiful tool for many, many things, but it is in direct opposition to the art of music being treated with respect.”  This made me, for a couple reasons, sad and frustrated. 

First, I put myself in your place and tried to look at what the internet means to someone who has been making critically acclaimed music for roughly a decade.  At this point in your career, the signal-to-noise ratio must be pretty low, and I’d imagine Googling yourself would lead to a miss of YouTube comment trolls, ad hominem judgments of your music, and an endless stream of sycophants.  I’d imagine that for someone as accomplished as you, what might be a useful feedback loop to some ends up sounding like, well, feedback; you don’t need people to tell you how wonderful or awful you are, as I’m pretty sure you’re capable of that honest assessment yourself.  Compound that with all of the business e-mail you get, and I’m pretty sure I’d never turn on my laptop if I was you.

Ultimately, I came back around to the second half of the quote – the part about it being “in direct opposition to the art of music being treated with respect,” and the only thing I can think is that you aren’t looking in the right places.  The comment section of a Raconteurs video might not be the place for “respect,” but to paint everything on the internet with that broad of a brush would be like refusing to listen to your band because you use a distortion pedal.  The internet brims with people who want to discuss music and share and recommend new bands, but more importantly there are people who actively discuss why they like music, highlighting the specific things that someone like yourself does well.  These are the kind of things that lead people to spend fifty dollars on a ticket to your concert and then bombard their friends with blurry pictures and cell phone videos to try to share the joy the music brings.  Hell, on my better days here, this is my goal – to get down to the root of why a particular song brings me joy or inspires me in some way.  This is how I someone like me can honor music.

All of this brought be back to one of my favorite songs of yours – “I’m Finding It Harder to be A Gentleman.”  To refresh your memory, this is the song where the guy frets about his manners and as a result of his worrying ends up both acting ungentlemanly and covered in mud.  I’ve always read this as a “you get what you put into it message” – your narrator worried too much about appearing to be a gentleman that he blows his opportunity.  I suppose the internet is the same way – if you want to find people honoring music the way it deserves to be honored, there are plenty of us here trying to do our part.  If you’d rather brush it off with a sentence or two, then you’ll find plenty of people doing the same to your band. 

Love,
Brian

More on The White Stripes: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Danger! High Voltage (Soulchild Radio Mix)” – Electric Six
(Words/music: Joe Frezza, Steve Nawara, Anthony Selph, and Tyler Spencer, available on Danger! High Voltage EP, XL 2003)

Right now I have a cold – thankfully one that’s not too dehabilitating, but one that’s just enough to make eating a chore and frustrate me with the periodic coughing.  Most relevantly, it’s only made me more tired the last few days.  Naturally, I looked to music before over-the-counter medication (or quality rest, perhaps the wisest option).  The hope was that the right song would dislodge whatever ails me and put my brain back on solid footing. 

So I turned to “Danger! High Voltage” in my time of need hoping that it would de-gunk my insides.  Maybe it’s the Taco Bell line, but I hoped this song would have a Tabasco-like cleansing effect.  Perhaps it’s over-the-top absurdity and driving beat would lift my spirits.  If nothing else, that gaudy saxophone at the end would give me a laugh, and folk wisdom suggests that laughter is the best medicine, right?  Or maybe listening to it would fill me with nostalgia for the first time I saw this video on the internet, probably in Real Player format before YouTube would make something like this immediately accessible.  As a last resort, I could picture Jack White and Dick Valentine standing over a small fire, manically screaming back and forth at each other about their desires.

Of course, this didn’t work.  I’m still hacking away, but at least I’m smiling a little more.  And now I really want a quesadilla. 

More on Electric Six: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Steady, as She Goes” – The Raconteurs
(Words/music: Brendan Benson and Jack White, available on Broken Boy Soldiers, Third Man / V2 Records 2006)

I love watching sports, but I’ve realized that it’s an area where trivia trumps understanding.  Sure, there are plenty of excellent minds who analyze and discuss sports both on TV and in print, but far too many spew lists of unrelated facts.  For example, while watching football highlights, a former NFL player recapping the game diverted from the action on screen to tell us where the running back went to college.  Rather than analyzing the play (which is why these networks hire former players and coaches, not necessarily because they are gifted journalists) or just reading the copy and staying out of the way, he felt compelled to throw out a fact a way of showing off.  Sometimes a player’s alma mater matters (when talking about former teammates, the system he played in, a former coach, etc.), but most of the time it’s inconsequential.  Rather than furthering discussion by talking about what makes a player exceptional or a team perform poorly, we’re pumped full of facts available within the first couple paragraphs of a Wikipedia search.  Simply put, it’s a convenient way to sound knowledgeable without saying anything thoughtful.

This happens with music as well.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of listing band member’s former bands or listing every single detail of a band’s biography.  I know this because I find myself falling into this trap more often than I care to admit.  It seems like some bands elicit this type of fact burp more than others; The Raconteurs, for instance, often get described not by what they sound like but by the members’ other musical projects.  Maybe that’s good enough for some people, but knowing where a band comes from doesn’t mean I’ll like a record.  In the grand scheme of things, I don’t like “Steady, as She Goes” because the guy from the White Stripes sings on it.  I like it because it’s a departure from Jack White’s usual straight-ahead blues assault.  There’s depth to the arrangement, both in instrumentation and in song structure.  There’s also subtlety beneath the volume, whether Brendan Benson’s backing vocals (hey, have I mentioned that he’s a solo artist?) or the guitar squeal buried in the mix right before the second chorus.  It also keeps the same things I like about his White Stripes songs, such as the punchy guitar sound and the snowballing tension that builds up to the chorus.  Sure, the band members’ pedigree acts as an advertisement to bring in listeners, but ultimately, people won’t stay exclusively because of their alma mater or hometown.  Eventually, these songs have to say something.

More on The Raconteurs: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm