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he wails “I need your sweet love…” – he means it (he’s
camped outside your house with a sharp knife and a
cold sweat). Meg’s vocal on ‘In The Cold Cold Night’
seems to respond – yeah, she’s saying, you’re crazy as
a cuckoo but … you know … I like it. Sounding like
Sandie Shaw (“you make me feel a little older, like a
full grown woman might…”), Meg says “I know that
you feel it too / when my skin turns into glue…” Okay
Meg, you say, taking one slow step after another toward
the door …
Kitty Empire has already said (in The Observer)
that the thing about Elephant (one of the things about
Elephant) is Jack White has this ability (in the course
of a line, of a song, of an album) to hit every button
you could ever want, and many buttons you could
hardly imagine and a few you’re willing to ignore. ‘I
Want To Be The Boy’ finds Jack getting maudlin over
a girl: “What kind of cartwheels do I have to pull…
/ I’m inclined to go finish high school just to make
notice that I’m around…”); ‘Ball & Biscuit’ finds Jack
redefining sex and rock’n’roll (in a way that just hasn’t
been done since Prince sang ‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’
– the only difference is that Jack doesn’t want to be
your girlfriend…): “It’s quite possible that I’m your
BUY White Stripes music online from and
third man, girl, but it’s a fact that I’m a seventh son…”
he slurs lasciviously. “Let’s have a ball and a biscuit
sugar and take our sweet time about it…” Oh yeah. On
‘Little Acorns’, he doesn’t give a shit (“Take all your
problems, baby, and rip ‘em apart…“), on ‘Hypnotise’
(the closest thing here to a retread of ‘Fell in Love with
a Girl’ – but, man, what a retread) he’s intent, driven: “I
want to hypnotise you baby on the telephone…”
The White Stripes are legend, already. They are
legend and they know it – they nod to the past (‘Girl
You Have No Faith in Medicine’ is like The Rolling
Stones by way of Jonathan Fire Eater) but this is
not The Strokes (despite the fact that Elephant was
recorded using equipment that predates 1963). This
is – to coin an overused phrase – now. The White
Stripes are having the time of their life (listen to the
last track, ‘It’s True That We Love Each Other’, a
throwaway duet between Jack and Meg and Holly
GoLightly: “I love Jack White like a little brother…”
/ “Well, Holly I love you too / but there’s just so
much I don’t know about you…”) – they’re enjoying
every second. The greatest rock’n’roll album
ever recorded. C’mon. You can keep the hyperbole,
Adams. But it’s pretty damn great all the same. �
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