100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s #16 The White Stripes – Fell In Love With a Girl

Released: 2002

Was the mythos really important? Were they brother and sister? Why did a man who grew up in 1990’s Detroit listen to so much Delta Blues? Was Jack really that close to becoming a priest, before deciding not to go because the seminary wouldn’t allow him to bring his amp?

All these things were glorious but unnecessary counterpoints, because what The White Stripes did, at least at the start, was so primal, pure and uncomplicated. You didn’t need to know who Robert Johnson was to dance like a scalded cat when their music came on, and with Meg assaulting the drums and Jack turning his guitar into straight up voodoo, everybody knew old St.Vitus had his house band.

Fell In Love With a Girl, with it’s teenage rampage splatter noise, cliff-edge emotions and violent buzzsaw riff, was garage rock like they used to make it in the Nuggets-era but it felt somehow new, like a postcard from ancient times with a brand new blood-licked stamp. And when it came on in your joint everything except pounding your feet was outside your bubble; the who, what and why was for those normal folks in damnation to try and understand.