30SEVEN NATION ARMY THE WHITE STRIPES

(2003)

Garage rock riffing goes stadium‑sized

Four albums into The White Stripes’ career, Jack White already had considerable form as a blues revivalist with a raw approach to production. But even by his standards, Seven Nation Army was minimalist. The song didn’t even have a chorus as such. Instead, that now-immortal E minor guitar line (all seven notes of it) was the chorus. A novice could play it on guitar, and many have done. Not that White ever considered Seven Nation Army a mere throwaway. As he once revealed: “I thought: ‘If I ever got asked to write the next James Bond theme, that would be the riff for it.’” Turn to p80 to learn the riff.