I've become less interested in Jack White as time's gone on, but when White Blood Cells came out in 2001 they seemed pretty exciting. The whole contrived colour scheme thing, the husband/wife-brother/sister tabloid angle, the Detroit scene they'd spearheaded. Most of all though the primal force of Jack's vox and guitar and Meg's drumming, coupled with turning highly unfashionable music (electric blues) into a mass market phenomenon. White Blood Cells was a blast, and the follow up 3l3phant turned them into pop-stars, whilst being one of the best rock albums of that time, streets ahead of peers like The Strokes. I liked large parts of Get Behind Me Satan. The most recent one, Icky Thump, despite it's Lancastrian dialect title and traditional British influences, was to these ears, a mess. No tunes, over-wrought, squeeling guitars replacing the punk-blues. One song You Don't Know What Love Is was good, and that was an FM rock ballad. They lost the simplicity, and with it the spark and lightness of touch. I can't say I was moved by Jack's heavy 70s style rock bands The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather either. Still, nothing good lasts forever.
This song is fantastic, and shows the imagination at work back in their prime. Black Jack Davey is a traditional British folk song, maybe from the early 1700s, and has been covered by tons of people. The White Stripes take the borders folk song, marry it to their primitive electric punk blues, and run with it. As it's a British folk song, it concerns class- Black Jack Davey is the wandering, raggle-taggle gypsy, and spies a fair maiden married to the local Lord/Laird. He steps in to save her, liberates her from her wealthy, aristocratic husband, her fine feather bed, her long blue gloves made of Spanish leather, and even her baby, and she declares love for cunning but penniless rogue Black Jack Davey. Even so, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the Lord, hearing all from the servant, and finding his wife on the river bank in the arms of Black Jack Davey. This retro-updating of a traditional British folk song was the b-side to their breakthrough hit Seven Nation Army, and as a result must have sold bucketloads. Top stuff.
Black_Jack_Davey.mp3
This song is fantastic, and shows the imagination at work back in their prime. Black Jack Davey is a traditional British folk song, maybe from the early 1700s, and has been covered by tons of people. The White Stripes take the borders folk song, marry it to their primitive electric punk blues, and run with it. As it's a British folk song, it concerns class- Black Jack Davey is the wandering, raggle-taggle gypsy, and spies a fair maiden married to the local Lord/Laird. He steps in to save her, liberates her from her wealthy, aristocratic husband, her fine feather bed, her long blue gloves made of Spanish leather, and even her baby, and she declares love for cunning but penniless rogue Black Jack Davey. Even so, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the Lord, hearing all from the servant, and finding his wife on the river bank in the arms of Black Jack Davey. This retro-updating of a traditional British folk song was the b-side to their breakthrough hit Seven Nation Army, and as a result must have sold bucketloads. Top stuff.
Black_Jack_Davey.mp3
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