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I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself

They made me realise what I was missing in music.

Posted 3rd February 2011, 4:31pm in Blogs by Hannah Currie
Hannah Currie

Hannah Currie

Writer

I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself I received the news that White Stripes had split with a heavy heart. My fondest memory is head banging, aged 11, to the ear-splitting opening of 'Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground' in the car on the way to school. My mum was in the driving seat doing it along with me and it was very uncool, or cool, depending on how you look at it, but the only thing on our minds as we drove (dangerously, what with the head movements) past bemused motorists was how much we LOVED that fucking tune! For me, it made high school bearable. As long as my miserable day was sandwiched between White Stripes songs, I could get through it. We must have listened to that album ['White Blood Cells'] about a thousand times; when we realised there were another two records already released, it was like finding untapped treasure.

The White Stripes opened my eyes to real music. Never before had I listened to an album from start to finish. I was a one hit wonder kid, still buying singles from Woolies and swapping them about in my CD player - the tragedy of alternating Savage Garden with Samantha Mumba was a low point that still haunts me. Then along came the pure perfection of 'White Blood Cells' - the foot-tapping catchiness of 'Hotel Yorba', the reflective beauty of 'Same Boy You’ve Always Known', the total hipness of 'Fell In Love With A Girl' (show me a man who doesn’t like that song and I’ll show you a man needs help). All of them held together with that awesome, effortlessly skillful guitar and those thrashing, fittingly unpolished drums. I finally knew what people meant when they said music spoke to them and I was thirsty for more of the same. I suddenly wanted to play an instrument - not surprisingly, I chose the drums.

Meg White gave me hope that I could be somebody. Like me, she was not especially outgoing, not exceptionally pretty, not particularly good on the drums. But she got out there and hit them like she meant it, and it worked better than any technically-perfect performance could have. Next to the glitzy ‘tits and teeth’ of fellow female musicians, she seemed shockingly lank and plain. But Kylie and J-Lo had nothing on her in the cool stakes. Apparently the band have split because of Meg’s stage fright; if that’s true, it makes everything she has achieved ten-times better in my eyes. White Stripes live was a relatively rare spectacle, but each show must have seemed like a mountain to climb for Meg. Presumably she did it for the fans, and I’m grateful. I was lucky enough to see White Stripes at a packed-out Glasgow Carling Academy in November 2005, still up there amongst my top gigs, and I must have been to hundreds.

Jack White is a genius, but nothing he’s done since has blown me away like White Stripes did. How could it? When he put the band aside he lost something. It must be difficult to peak so early, and I hate to be small-minded, but I watched the Raconteurs at Leeds Festival wishing I was watching The White Stripes. They were the perfect duo - pale and interesting, genuinely odd - not just pretending to be odd - and so mysterious. They’re brother and sister. No, they’re married. No, they used to be together but now they just creepily hang about with one another. I still don’t know how Jack and Meg came to be, I’m just glad they did. They made me realise what I was missing in music - ironically, now it’s them I’m going to miss.
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