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***
Does 32 Years count as a wait. Although a massive Jack fan I was brought up on a british band called Status Quo. When I was finally old enough to go and see them “live” the drummer decided that moment to leave! March 2013 32 years later the band finally sort out there issues and I get to see the “Classic Line Up” at Hammersmith (looking forward to seeing Jack there in June), so I would say that was my longest wait (but worth it)
Time is an interesting construct. The longest wait for me was likely only a few seconds in reality, standing at the alter waiting for my future wife to enter and walk down the aisle. But when you are waiting for the rest of your life to begin and thinking about all the possible events to come even further out in time, the wait has no bound. I am still waiting in a sense.
The longest wait is ongoing. Waiting to finally see Jack White at a gig(28th June,Hammersmith)
Being only 17 years I can’t say there is a long wait I’ve had to endure, especially as there probably comments in which the wait the person had to endure is a time in which is longer than I have been alive. I can say that I’m enduring what seems to be a very long wait not because of the short 3 month period of time but because it’s a constant thought. Waiting to hear back if I was accepted into the university of my dreams to persue a career in film making seems like an eternity but hopefully be worth it. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to maybe get a hold on this single, seeing as I live in Newfoundland, Canada and there wasn’t somewhere for me to go listen to the pre release of the record or have a chance to win this amazing single. Keep up your great work at Thirdman Blackwell, hopefully I’ll get to visit the store sometime soon!
@Ben Blackwell, the longest wait I remember was the one and only time I pressed my own vinyl. I recall watching the fedex tracking one Saturday morning and racing down to my local facility to pick up my 300 color vinyl LPs. It was a proud moment and something I have always wanted to do. I even sent you one with a note on how your awesome label helped inspire me to make my own record. I understand you are busy and can’t respond to every fanboy that sends you a record. Hope it made ya smile or laugh….and feel free to send me a record back now…it’s your perfect chance!!! :-p
WEIGHT!!!
Nooooo, I meased up. Do we get a second try?
I keep waiting for tomorrow. Every day I wait. And it always comes. And I think, “That’s not exactly what I had in mind today”, but still, the things I love best about today and tomorrow are listening to the birds and frogs sing, and cicadas hum, and even when it’s not that time of year, I still enjoy listening to a J.W. album every day. Good job Jack. I love you and all you’ve done, you’re far more than wood and plaster.
I’ve been waiting, what seems like an age, for you guys to get rid of that moron Trump! In your own time, can’t wait all day, time waits for no man, tempest fugit etc.
Let me tell you about a yearly-long wait that I impatiently endured periodically during my teenager years (I would say from 1994/95 to 2001/2). The thing is that one night I was having dinner with my parents, when a documentary about the Beatles came on TV. It was about the Hamburg years (leather pants, comb over haircuts and electric guitars). As you can imagine, I was fascinated. Coincidentally, a few days latter I was listening to my favorite radio show when they announced that a vinyl fair was being held in Barcelona the following weekend. Although I was familiar with vinyl records, as I used to nose around my father’s collection (I was especially fond of his Elvis records, as well as some good old 70s rock), I knew nothing about bootlegs or what to expect from the fair. The next Saturday, as we were browsing through plastic boxes filled to the tops with fantastic vinyl records, I realized that I knew nothing about the Beatles, rock’n’roll music or collecting vinyl records. With despair, I also realized that I had no money. As much as I tried to convince my father to buy me something, he told me that if I wanted to start a vinyl collection of my own, I would better attend next year’s fair with my own money. Over the next year I frantically recollected all the money that I could (and borrowed from any adult in my reach). I spent all that “hardly” saved money, in less than one hour after steeping a foot inside the building that hosted the next year’s vinyl fair. Despite being naive and buying too fast (and way too expensive), those first vinyl records are still within my favorites (that day I discovered the Lost Lennon Tapes!). From that moment onward, this little fair became the peak of my year, which I spent saving money that was quickly burn in one morning (and the fantastic afternoons of the aftermath in which I discovered new music, as I listened to the newly acquired vinyls). I can vividly recall how long it was to wait a whole year until the next fair was organized (I remember one year that I was ill on the fair’s weekend; as you can imagine, I didn’t miss it although during the first hour I felt absolutely dizzy). I can also recall how exciting it was to talk to people from all over the world that was as fascinated as I was with music.
This periodic ritual continued until around 2003, when the guy organizing the fair (he was a famous local DJ and the number one fan of the Stones) had a dispute with the sponsors. After that dispute, the fair majorly lost its quality (it didn’t even had a fixed location/date) and was no longer attracting my interest. Fortunately, after a short hiatus, the fair got back on track just in time to get exotic vinyl records from the likes of the White Stripes, Son Hose or my, of course, my beloved Beatles (I can’t still believe how much bootlegs are available from them). Despite the Internet and the Vault, I still feel a teenage excitement every time that I visit the vinyl fair; last time I that I visited it, my son helped me browsing through the plastic boxes… who knows if soon enough he’ll start a vinyl collection of his own.
(PS: I previously tried to add this comment and I believe that something went wrong, so I posted it again – sorry if it is duplicated)
I waited a really long ass time to see the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. Long ass time.