Jack White
“Over and Over and Over”
limited edition one-sided tri-color, 200 something copies pressed, complete with custom picture sleeve that will be slightly different from the standard released version
Do you guys know how pumped I am?
For the record, I first heard this monster riff in 2005 at Jack’s house while he and Meg were recording “Get Behind Me Satan.”
I am pretty sure that the “Blue Orchid” riff pre-dates this one by a few days, but in my mind, they exist hand-in-hand. While “Blue Orchid” smashed that recording process wide open and gave Jack the inspiration to make that album as bad ass as possible, THIS riff, inarguably, is ten times stronger. I feel like Jack was originally calling it “Thermonuclear Counter-Thrust” but maybe I’m just imagining that. I can find no contemporaneous documentation of that name.
There are two takes of demo recordings of this song from 2005 (with the riff played solely on fuzz bass). There are demo recordings from 2007 with the White Stripes trying it in rehearsal leading up to the tracking of the “Icky Thump” album. Imagine the guitar profile more in line with the octave-pedaled presence of the song “Icky Thump” and that’s a good start for understanding the 2007 version. I guess the Raconteurs tried it but I never heard any evidence, same with the Dead Weather. It was apparently the main track that Jack and Jay-Z worked on together in 2009, under the title “Ray Bans” or “Behind My Ray Bans” and although I’ve never heard that working, I’m told to imagine the phrase “Behind my Ray Bans” to coincide with the last five notes of the riff.
As Jack has already said, this had been his white whale. We sincerely considered including the ’07 demo as part of the “Icky Thump X” Vault package last year. I have no recollection of Jack ever previously giving me such an impassioned plea…”I just really think we shouldn’t put this on the Vault” he said. My response was pretty matter-of-factly, “Well, it’s your label, so please don’t feel like you have to convince me.” Maybe he was trying to convince himself?
Regardless, at the end of 2017 when Jack finally had played me this version you hear now, upon the end of the song, I looked at him and said “I’ve been waiting twelve years to hear this song with lyrics.”
The final version of this song is everything I’d ever dreamed it would be. It is my favorite moment on the album, with the coda to “Humoresque” being a close second. I cannot wait to see this monster unleashed unto a sell-out crowd at Little Caesar’s Arena, a stone’s throw away from the Gold Dollar where this whole mess got started.
I’ve got an extra copy of this limited tri-color to give away here. AUTOGRAPHED by Jack White, today, explicitly for this purpose. Don’t use my give-away here as an excuse to miss going to any number of the listening parties we’re throwing at record stores worldwide though. Even though we’re giving away tri-colors at the listening parties, none of those will be autographed. Man we spoil you kids.
As for the giveaway, post a comment, can be about whatever, but maybe talk about a significant wait you’ve endured in life. Can be funny, pithy, in iambic pentameter, whatever. The “best” comment will be solely determined by me. Please chime in by noon central time on Tuesday, March 13th.
***WINNER HAS BEEN CONTACTED***
As a child I use to listen to my dad play stairway to heaven all the time on guitar, he played it so much that I believed it was the only song he knew. Some years later at the age 14, I took one of my dads old guitars and started teaching myself, the first thing I ever learned was the riff of purple haze, at the time is was my favorite song, it took me weeks to get it down. A year later i was introduced to jack white. And I have to say, jack white has changed my life completely and how I view life, he has introduced me to great musician like son house, blind willie mctell, Loretta Lynn and much much more. I have this obsession with him that I bought any equipment he used, so I saved my money for a big muff fuzz pedal, after playing with that for a while, I decided to buy an octave pedal after saving for a while. That pedal has changed m life and the way I write music. Because of jack, i want to become a musician and change so many peoples lives like how he changed my life. Also if it wasn’t for him I would never have gotten into vinyls. I remember going to the third man shop in Nashville and in Detroit, I was so amazed. I even recorded a cover of pay day by Mississippi john hurt in the vinyl recording booth. I would play countless hours on guitar listening to the white stripes and jacks solo stuff trying to learn every single song. All I got to say is thank you Jack for changing my life completely. I waited my whole life for something like this to give meaning to my life and change it for good
After my cousin and I saw Jack in concert everything changed. I learned guitar
I hope this song is great!
I’ve been going to Glastonbury Festival for years! Saw The White Stripes at my first one (2005) and what a show. In 2007 I heard a tune being blasted out on the Other stage. I later found out it was ‘Genesis’ by Justice. I absolutely loved it! I bought all their stuff and waited for my chance to see them live. Waited and waited. Then finally, in 2017, a full 10 years after first hearing their record at Glastonbury Festival, I got to see them live, right there at that very festival. Full circle!
Knowing that Jack hangs out with Dylan, and how he loves Americana, I wonder all the time what Jack thinks/feels about Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead. This is what I’d ask JWIII in the event I ever ran into him. That’s something I will be waiting for.
Here I give you a rhyme
about a body function as old as time
The dilemma began with a wait
Twenty people behind the venue’s gate
For hours I stood in the hot sun,
Gulping down water until I was done
Then the clock finally struck seven
and the gates opened into heaven
Another long hour goes by
Until the opener comes, then says their goodbye
Then the real test begins for me
As I wait for the band I want to see
My bladder is about to burst
As the band plays through their first
And I’m close to wetting my pants
As the band finally plays their last
And as the crowds all clear to go home
I head straight for the porcelain throne
For the real wait I’ve endured this day
Was not for the band I just heard play
It was for this one glorious piss,
a wait ending in pure bliss.
I never win anything.
Your eyes are as pretty as a blue moon in March.
My life is nothing short of a waiting game, always has been. It takes the lessons of others sometimes to teach you that waiting is only relevant to the person involved, my girl friends incredible story enlightens me everyday and makes me reflect… My Muses story goes like this…
Why am I always so full of life and happy? Because I eat a lot of humble pie. #truth Please allow me to tell you about one of my recipes….
I never knew I was actually smart until I was in law school. Yes, I had always made straight A’s all through school; however, I firmly believed it was because of my hard work and not because of my genius IQ. My dear Mother had hidden my actual IQ and standardized test scores from me most of my life. Heck, I didn’t even know I was a member of Mensa (Mom had applied for me). She wisely wanted to keep me humble. Up until that point, whenever I accidentally learned I had made a 99% or higher on a standardized test, she would always say: “Well, even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and again.” I always believed everyone else was smarter than me. When she finally revealed to me my certified IQ when I was complaining about my law school studies, I was gob smacked! Mom said to me, “See, law school should be nothing for you. Stop complaining. Everyone else has a lot less brains to work with and they become successful lawyers.”
Unfortunately, my Mother’s words had the opposite effect on me. See, a lion never roars after a kill. But I, newly armed with this information, became quite cavalier. Instead of studying more, I studied less. Instead of graciously accepting this information and tucking away this weapon as a wise warrior would do, I used it to feed my ego. When it came time to take the Bar Exam, I studied less than anyone I knew. When I finished the Bar Exam more than an hour ahead of everyone else (over 1500 people), I went back to my hotel room and took a nap free from worry. When asked how I had done, I told everyone it was one of the easiest test I had ever taken: “What was all the fuss about?”
The Bar Exam results are published online and everyone is able to look up their results at the same time. My phone began ringing off the hook that day when the results came in: “How did you do? What did you score?” I arrogantly responded, “I haven’t looked yet. I’m sure I passed.” When I got around to looking, I couldn’t believe my eyes; I remember the exact moment I saw that I had failed.— I kept refreshing the results over and over thinking that I must have a problem with my eyes. Have you ever had one of those moments of painful clarity? Where your ears start buzzing and the room gets small and you start sweating and feel a little dizzy? That happened to me. I learned that BIG lesson: Humble yourself or life will do it for you. This isn’t the end of my story….
As you know, EVERYONE KNEW that I had taken the Bar and was waiting for my results. EVERYONE KNEW when the results were released. And EVERYONE was going to know I had FAILED: my employers, my friends, my family, my former teachers, and especially the haters. I am going to tell you I love pie. ALL pie. Pie is one of my favorite things. But humble pie tastes like crap. I had to tell everyone. Over the next few months, that was the first question everyone asked me when I saw them. And I had to admit I FAILED. IT SUCKED. It especially sucked when my “fake friends” and folks that pretended to be interested asked me with a gleam in their eye as they already knew. I remember my Grandmother saying to me, “Don’t worry, JFK, Jr. had to take it several times. And see, he still has that gorgeous head of hair.”
Well, I decided to eat that humble pie with relish. I had to leave my job as my employment was conditioned with passing the Bar. I had to move home into my childhood bedroom at my Mother’s house. I had to admit to at least one person a day for months that I had failed. I woke up every morning and went to my child hood library down the street, the Charles Webb Wesconnett Regional Library, and studied all day long every day for 4 months. Every night after eating a healthy brain-food dinner lovingly prepared by my Mother, I would take long walks in the neighborhoods where I had grown up and reflect on my folly.
During those long evening walks, I reflected on my carelessness. I found my sense of humor again. I had a t-shirt made that I wore that said, “I went to law school and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” I started conversations with strangers that looked sad by saying, “I just failed the Bar Exam and had to move back in with my Mother. What’s your problem?” I started being my old, funny, irreverent self again. Some years later I read that Mother Teresa said, “We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully.” She is one wise lady. My story doesn’t end here…..
I had to take a menial job while I studied to save up enough to pay to take the Exam again, to pay for Bar Review materials and to help my Mother with feeding and housing me. Two weeks before I was set to take the Bar Exam again, I was fooling around in my room with my teen age karaoke machine singing Linda Ronstadt’s “Poor Poor Pitiful Me.” (I found making fun of myself to actually be fun.) My Mother entered and was holding a very thin envelope from The Florida Bar in the mail. I remember thinking, “OH, NO! What can they do to me NOW??” The envelope called to me like the box must have called to Pandora: desire and fear—equally. Mom sat down next to me and patted my little child hood bed and asked me to sit down. I sat down. “Open it,” she said. “I can’t,” I replied. “Carin Elaine, open up this envelope now.” I opened up the envelope with shaking arms and tears already streaming down my face….I read as far as: “The Florida Bar regrets to inform you”—and then I literally sort-of passed out and felt the room slide away. I came to with my Mom whooping and screaming and dancing and knocking things over in my room: “They made a mistake! They made a mistake! They made a mistake!”
“What mistake?” I croaked. My Mother drew herself up and holding the letter in front of her read: “The Florida Bar regrets to inform you that a mistake was made on your Bar Exam results. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may have caused….Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.” That was it. My nightmare was over. Or was it? We began calling everyone we knew and telling them a mistake had been made. The problem was, most folks found it hard to believe. I had to carry a copy of that letter around with me for several years to show people and I still heard whispers of doubt. Eventually, I stopped carrying around that letter, I decided I had nothing to prove to anyone. That is because it take an enormous amount of strength, security and confidence to be humble. That is when I earned my second lesson that good old Mother Teresa also maintains, “If you are humble—nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.”
This lesson had made me a better person. It has often reminded me to not judge others. It has shown me that empathy and Grace is the best style you can have. I still have many lessons to learn and if you aren’t humble, you have to eat humble pie. But this is only because God loves you and humility is one of the best teachers. God disciplines those whom he loves. In the Book of Hebrews 12:5, we find these words, “For the Lord disciplines those whom He loves, and chastises every child whom He accepts.” So I guess the moral of my story is, just eat the humble pie. I know it tastes like crap. But in being gracious and with a little bit of sweet tea, it sure goes down a lot more smooth. Thanks for reading and just remember—there are no calories in humble pie!!!
CEM.
As a child I use to listen to my dad play stairway to heaven all the time on guitar, he played it so much that I believed it was the only song he knew. Some years later at the age 14, I took one of my dads old guitars and started teaching myself, the first thing I ever learned was the riff of purple haze, at the time is was my favorite song, it took me weeks to get it down. A year later i was introduced to jack white. And I have to say, jack white has changed my life completely and how I view life, he has introduced me to great musician like son house, blind willie mctell, Loretta Lynn and much much more. I have this obsession with him that I bought any equipment he used, so I saved my money for a big muff fuzz pedal, after playing with that for a while, I decided to buy an octave pedal after saving for a while. That pedal has changed m life and the way I write music. Because of jack, i want to become a musician and change so many peoples lives like how he changed my life. Also if it wasn’t for him I would never have gotten into vinyls. I remember going to the third man shop in Nashville and in Detroit, I was so amazed. I even recorded a cover of pay day by Mississippi john hurt in the vinyl recording booth. I would play countless hours on guitar listening to the white stripes and jacks solo stuff trying to learn every single song. All I got to say is thank you Jack for changing my life completely