Jack White is releasing a book of lyrics via his Third Man imprint, and he’s been talking to the Guardian about songwriting and how he approaches it.
The 50-year-old singer-songwriter explained that he rarely writes autobiographical lyrics these days. In fact, he isn’t a fan of the confessional approach at all: “It’s become very popular in the Taylor Swift way of pop singers writing about all of their publicly aired break-ups, which I don’t find interesting at all,” he said.
“I think it’s a little bit boring for me to write about myself. Even if I’ve had a really interesting day, I feel like I’ve already lived that, I don’t need to go through it every time I sing this song. If it’s something really painful, I’m not going to put this important, painful thing that I went through out there for some idiot on the internet to stomp all over.”
Instead, he said he prefers to channel his inner thoughts and feelings via characters, and used the analogy of his pre-White Stripes profession: “When I learned to reupholster furniture as a teenager, I didn’t learn how to build a chair from scratch; I learned how to take an old beat-up chair and bring it back to life. I’ve realised I’ve been doing that with music, with sculpture, with poetry, with what we do at Third Man.”
He referenced a track on his 2024 album No Name. “Archbishop Harold Holmes is maybe the ultimate version of that. It’s somebody else’s letter. Basically a religious conman – a grifter. What if I were to become this guy for a minute and add more modern verbiage? I used it as a springboard to talk about these kinds of characters who are still alive and well right now in our own government.”
White has been openly critical of Trump and his administration on social media, which begs the question whether he would ever write an out-and-out protest song?
“Well, when Dylan said the answer was blowing in the wind, he didn’t tell you what the answer was,” White pointed out. “I think a lot of people in the protest days were torn: you want to make a statement, but the speaker can be chewed up and spat out.
"The search for hypocrisy becomes intense once somebody takes the podium and condemns somebody else. When it comes to the president, I know a lot about it, so I feel comfortable saying it. But if I were to put it in artistic form, I don’t think I would say those things directly. I wouldn’t say the names. I would make up a character.”
The book, Jack White Complete Lyrics & Selected Writing Volume 1 is out now.
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