Why The White Stripes are Appropriate for All Ages

When some 14-year-olds find some other 14-year-olds with the same music taste, they decide that they’re going to be their generation’s Led Zeppelin. They take a trip to Guitar Center, then christen their cheap instruments in a garage but are quickly struck by the realization that none of them can play a single note (except for that one kid who just quit playing the flute). After practicing for a few days, they grow discouraged, and one will sigh and say something like “We’re just kids, we won’t ever be any good at this.” But another will go home, make a list of the World’s Simplest Songs, and slowly diagnose the notes, slowly figuring them out. The next day, they hang out in that garage, their momentarily retired instruments sitting in the corner, but that one kid proposes that they just try a few pretty easy songs.
The last song on the list? Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes.
I don’t need to tell you that this song is anthemic — we practically come out of the womb knowing it. It’s simple yet effective, accessible with a bit of flair. Sports crowds gravitate towards it, but what’s even more incredible is the way high schoolers gravitate toward this two-piece. They’re simple, they’re highly stylized, and they’re not outdated but not too new to be uncool amongst the slightly edgier crowd. But I’m not in high school anymore. I’m a college student, I should have grown out of my “White Stripes phase,” right? Why do I still care?
Am I immature, just trying to relive my high school days? No — I, like everyone else, was not the biggest fan of high school. Am I struggling to evolve my music taste? Actually, that’s likely. Or is it something other than that, something more personal?
Before forming the White Stripes, Jack White worked in upholstery, and Meg White wanted to be a chef. In 1997, they switched careers and started the White Stripes at 22 years old. Their band wasn’t recognized until they were 25, with their fairly successful album De Stijl, and they didn’t strike gold until White Blood Cells came out a year later. It took them until they were about 26 years old to fare well in their “scene,” to arrive at their “destination.”
So they started when they were 22. On paper, 22 is young, and almost everyone is full of promise. But in college, it’s ancient, close to death unless you have a job you had worked toward acquiring since you were 20 (at the latest). And don’t even get me started on the perception of being 24 or 25 or 26…
But there’s the pressure to score higher in life than everyone else you’re around, people pushing internships like drug dealers pushing cocaine, the replacement of community with competition. It’s intimidating, remembering that I’m “behind” always fills me with doubt, repeatedly thinking I’m so screwed. Sometimes I’m reminded that “it’s never too late,” but that only happens when I ask outside sources to confirm that I am, in fact, not failing at life and I just need to enjoy where I am right now.
I choose to listen to the White Stripes for the same reason those 14-year-olds try to play their songs: they’re an outside source (that’s not my family) I can call on at any time to remind myself that, hey, they weren’t 17 when they decided what they wanted to do, they weren’t “too young” or “too old.” Neither are those kids in the garage, neither am I, and neither is anyone else who simply wants to create.
