Jack White pens poem for Detroit

What does Meg think of her ex-husband's foray into the written word?
What does Meg think of her ex-husband's foray into the written word?

It's not uncommon for rock stars to complain about being misquoted. Just days after Noel Gallagher claimed that his comments about Jay-Z's headline appearance at 2008's Glastonbury festival were blown out of proportion, it has emerged that Jack White wants to set the record straight about his relationship with his hometown.

Raised in southwest Detroit, White (born John Anthony Gillis) moved to Nashville in 2006 and has since been quoted as stating that he "couldn't take the negativity anymore", and "couldn't breathe anymore in that scene", causing some consternation amongst some of his former compatriots.

However, White told the Detroit Free Press recently that "Those expressions of mine have never been a representation of my feelings about Detroit the city, a town that I have strong feelings about... nor were they expressions about its citizens."

In an attempt to articulate his true feelings about his birthplace, White has penned a poem entitled Courageous Dream's Concern, which you can read in full here.

Putting our literary critic's hat on for a moment, there is some confusion of tense and a few ill-advised rhymes, but otherwise it's not too bad. Is White's effort better than Pete Doherty or Billy Corgan's poetic output? You decide…

Interestingly, during The Raconteurs' performance at Glastonbury 2008, we're pretty sure we heard White introduce the band as "The Raconteurs from Nashville, Tennessee". The plot thickens…

Chris Vinnicombe worked with us here on the MusicRadar team from the site's initial launch way back in 2007, and also contributed to Guitarist magazine as Features Editor until 2014, as well as Total Guitar magazine, amongst others. These days he can be found at Gibson Guitars, where he is editor-in-chief.