White Blood Cells and Elephant are the White Stripes’ defining works, but much of what makes those records so successful was already evident on the band’s first two records. While it’s impulsive and without a concern for posterity, it serves as a totem to both the blues legacy the Stripes were championing and gave that legacy a dirty, late ‘90s update, showing how timeless that genre truly is. When he delivers the anchoring line of “ The stuff I got will bust your brains out/ Yeah, it’ll make you lose your mind” it doesn’t come across as enticement as it did with Johnson, but as a threat.īrash and incendiary, the song has the nascence of a toddler taking its first steps. His voice, unrefined, high and reedy, is the perfect vehicle for making his narrator sound as though he’s spewing demented ramblings. Jack’s guitar tone sounds as though he’s using the electricity powering it to part a sea of crude oil. Meg’s drums hit heavy and sonorous, metronomic without being dull, and the tambourine rattle adds a rickety touch. If the Whites were daunted by the song’s lineage, they don’t show it.
With Jack and Meg White’s hands on it, though, the “Stop Breaking Down” gains a whole new vivacity and color. Perhaps most notably, the Rolling Stones injected some grease into the ditty on Exile on Main St., giving it an even more lecherous drive. Featuring Johnson on slide guitar and his warbling high voice, a chugging rhythm and lyrics rife with hokum, the basic blues number has found itself reinterpreted god knows how many times - as did just about every Johnson cut - before the White Stripes tackled it. “ The stuff I got will bust your brains out, baby/ It’ll make you lose your mind,” Johnson sang with cocksure temptation, begrudging the woman hounding him for whatever mojo he was hawking. In its original 1937 rendition, Johnson delivered the song in his distinctive spookiness but with a desperate libidinousness. On an album full of primitive garage ravers, this Robert Johnson cover stands as a crossroads, harkening back to the Stripes’ musical heritage and casting a jittery eye to the future.
But with the White Stripes’ eponymous record, it is entirely appropriate that “Stop Breaking Down” earns this distinction. It may be perceived as an insult to label a cover tune as the standout track from a band’s debut album.
“ Stop Breaking Down” from The White Stripes (1999) We are proud to present PLAYLIST: Jack White. We are confident this is the best of the Jack White, album by album. For this feature, we are tasked to pick the best song from each album in an artist or band’s discography.
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