As a new book of his lyrics, poems and selected musings is published, the White Stripes\u2019 singer, songwriter and general guitar hero reflects on poetry, politics and why writing a song is like reupholstering a chair<\/p>\n
On the jacket of Jack White: Collected Lyrics & Selected Writing Volume 1, the \u00a0poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib writes: \u201cI wish I read more people who talked about Jack White as a writer of lyrics.\u201d He makes a good point. White is celebrated as a singer, guitarist, producer and generator of indelible riffs but not so much as a wordsmith. His\u00a0new book, edited by official archivist Ben Blackwell, sets the record straight. Following 2023\u2019s The White Stripes Complete Lyrics 1997-2007, it covers every song White has written outside that band, along with several\u00a0poems, Instagram ruminations and scans from\u00a0his notebooks.<\/p>\n
White, 50, thinks fast and talks fast. He\u2019s sitting in the Nashville headquarters of Third Man, a record label, recording studio, pressing plant, publishing house, shop and ever-expanding vessel for White\u2019s vision of what is worth valuing and preserving in American culture. He\u2019s a kind of historian of American vernacular, drawn to the relationship between pop and the avant garde, between maverick auteurs and the communal imagination. His own work proves that defiant eccentricity is no obstacle to stadium shows and Bond themes, and that being wildly prolific hasn\u2019t diminished his mystique. With this book, he turns his curatorial eye on himself.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/ca78c61e48b5b29fbd289dabeba83a6e7b1647dc\/0_1565_4160_3328\/master\/4160.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=56f2cf4609aaa733c8f1eb19c27d668c\" "\\"Jack")
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