According to Jack White, Get Behind Me Satan deals with "characters and the ideal of truth," but in truth, the album is just as much about what people expect from the White Stripes and what they themselves want to deliver. Advance publicity for the album stated that it was written on piano, marimba, and acoustic guitar, suggesting that it was going to be a quiet retreat to the band's little room after the big sound, and bigger success, of Elephant. Then "Blue Orchid," Get Behind Me Satan's lead single, arrived. A devilish slice of disco-metal with heavily processed, nearly robotic riffs, the song was thrilling, but also oddly perfunctory; it felt almost like a caricature of their stripped-down but hard-hitting ock. As the opening track for Get Behind Me Satan, "Blue Orchid" is more than a little perverse, as though the White Stripes are giving their audience the required ock single before getting back to that little room, locking the door behind them, and doing whatever the hell they want. Even Jack White's work on the Cold Mountain soundtrack and Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose isn't adequate preparation for how far-flung this album is: Get Behind Me Satan is a weird, compelling collection that touches on several albums' worth of sounds, and its first four songs are so different from most of the White Stripes' previous music -- as well as from each other -- that, at first, they're downright disorienting. As if the red herring that is "Blue Orchid" isn't enough warning that Get Behind Me Satan is designed to defy expectations, "The Nurse"'s ironically perky marimbas and off-kilter stabs of drums and guitar -- not to mention lyrics like "the nurse should not be the one who puts salt in your wounds" -- make its domestic skulduggery one of the most perplexing and eerie songs the White Stripes have ever recorded (although Meg's brief cameo, "Passive Manipulation," which boasts the refrain "you need to know the difference between a father and a lover," rivals it). "My Doorbell," on the other hand, is almost ridiculously immediate and catchy, and with its skipping beat and brightly bashed pianos, surprisingly funky. Meanwhile, "Forever for Her (Is Over for Me)" turns cleverly structured wordplay and those fluttering marimbas into a summery, affecting allad.
But despite Get Behind Me Satan's hairpin turns, its inspired imagery and complicated feelings about love hold it together. Though "the ideal of truth" sounds cut-and-dried, the album is filled with ambiguities; even its title, which shortens the biblical phrase "get thee behind me Satan," has a murky meaning -- is it support, or deliverance, from Lucifer that the Stripes are asking for? There are pleading rockers, like the alternately begging and accusatory "Red Rain," and defiant allads, like "I'm Lonely (But I'm Not That Lonely Yet)," which has a stubborn undercurrent despite its archetypal, tear-in-my-beer country melody. Even Get Behind Me Satan's happiest-sounding song, the joyfully backwoods "Little Ghost," is haunted by loving someone who might not have been there in the first place. The ghostly presence of Rita Hayworth also plays a significant part on the album, on "White Moon" and the excellent "Take, Take, Take," a sharply drawn vignette about greed and celebrity: over the course of the song, the main character goes from just being happy to hanging out with his friends in a seedy bar to demanding a lock of hair from the screen siren. As eclectic as Get Behind Me Satan is, it isn't perfect: the energy dips a little in the middle, and it's notable that "Instinct Blues," one of the more traditionally Stripes-sounding songs, is also one of the least engaging. Though Jack and Meg still find fresh, arty reinterpretations of their classic inspirations, this time the results are exciting in a different way than their usual fare; and while the album was made in just two weeks, it takes awhile to unravel and appreciate. Get Behind Me Satan may confuse and even push away some White Stripes fans, but the more the band pushes itself, the better.
Mike the Knife's post about crossing tracks with Nicole Kidman in the "*Polo Lounge*":http://mog.com/Mike_the_Knife/blog_post/55225 got me thinking about her turn in Cold Mountain which I reviewed for an eZine a while back...I haven't watched it in a while and it also just dawned on me that Jack White provides a musical connection with a small but pivotal role in the film (I think the White St...
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Sometimes cynicism is it's own punishment. I avoided the White Stripes for years because to me they were a gimmick and buzz-band. At one point one couldn't swing a one eyed cat without hitting an article about the White Stripes. So of course the deadman had to avoid this commercial crap.Idiote Moi! I confess to the MOG that I missed the boat on this one. But I now have the pleasure of looki...
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Happy Friday all!_If you think that a kiss is all in the lipsC'mon, you got it all wrong, manAnd if you think that our dance was all in the hipsOh well, then do the twistIf you think holding hands is all in the fingersGrab hold of the soul where the memory lingers andMake sure to never do it with a singerCause they'll tell everyone in the world__But he was thinking about the girlYeah, but he's ...
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Mike the Knife's post about crossing tracks with Nicole Kidman in the "*Polo Lounge*":http://mog.com/Mike_the_Knife/blog_post/55225 got me thinking about her turn in Cold Mountain which I reviewed for an eZine a while back...I haven't watched it in a while and it also just dawned on me that Jack White provides a musical connection with a small but pivotal role in the film (I think the White St...
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So I ventured to www.whitestripes.com and what greeted me when I got there made me giggle like a schoolgirl. Alright, that's overstating it a bit, but what I was hearing was a backwards version of "Blue Orchid". Like Beatles-style. Like "Ozzy's telling me to commit suicide"-style.What's strange about this track is that it is amazingly listenable. Even backwards, folks. Check It.p.s. oh, I we...
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my week doesn't exist without a little white stripes. since "icky thump" came out, i've been a girl obsessed and unfortunately sorta forgot about their other stuff. now i'm making up for lost time and revisiting my older faves. though this isn't too terribly ancient, it's still fan-fucking-tastic in my book. how can you not love a song that sings the praises of rita hayworth?
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I have a monster crush, which means that I am feeling a little in love right now (or a lot in like, at least) — in that fun one-sided way that I enjoy. When I feel this way, it makes everything sound a little better and more romantic, including songs.And so I present "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me), which may be some old last-ditch effort by Jack White to get Renee Zellweger back (Is that tru.
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Con gracia encontré (entre mis hermosos desordenes de mi pieza) un cd que había dado por perdido. Ese cd tiene una de las bandas que me ha atraído en los ultimos tiempos, estoy hablando de The White Stripes. Sinceramente un bandón, despues de haberlo escuchado en mi reproductor de mp3 hice una lista que todo mortal tiene que escuchar de esta banda, estos son: -Girl, you have not faithin medi
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Henry and Liv (my kids) and I were rocking out tonight while Mom got some work done. Livvy shook her butt, and offered these deadpan reviews of some of the songs:Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground by the White Stripes -- "Sounds like a remote control plane by itself."Idioteque by Radiohead-- "Sounds like aliens."Blue Orchid bu the White Stripes -- "Sounds like a race car."She's a pretty spot on...
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Blue Orchid |
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| 2 The Nurse |
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| 3 My Doorbell |
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| 4 Forever for Her (Is Over for Me) |
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| 5 Little Ghost |
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| 6 The Denial Twist |
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| 7 White Moon |
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| 8 Instinct Blues |
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| 9 Passive Manipulation |
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| 10 Take, Take, Take |
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| 11 As Ugly as I Seem |
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| 12 Red Rain |
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| 13 I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet) |
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Click to purchase…
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 "Get Behind Me Satan")
