XLS 148
XL Recordings
7"
Released: Sep 2, 2002
I bought this very early in my record collecting "adventure". I was at at that time only searching for White Stripes records and I didn't know that much at the time. I knew that there was a difference between original pressings like this one and then later reissues. At the time I felt very lucky to find one, but with my knowledge today I know it's not very rare. There's over 20 for sale on discogs starting at 6.5$. So seeing that I paid 15$ for it at Academy Records in the beginning of 2010s made me think of how naive I was at the time regarding my collection. Especially since they slapped their stupid stickers on the cardboard and not on the plastic sleeveš³. Still nothing beats the romance of sifting through the records at a record store.
This 7" A-Side is "Dead leaves and the dirty ground" as we know it and the B-side is "Stop breaking down" a Robert Johnson cover. This is by far my favorite version of "Stop breaking down" cover from the White Stripes. Everybody knows Robert Johnson's classic:
For the White Stripes, Stop breaking down is track number 2 on The White Stripes self-titled debut:
The version on the album is more chaotic and more "garagy" with no polish at all. You can really feel the energy of Jack and Meg in this version. Interestingly, the album (as well as the 7" version) features a lot of slide guitar with heavy distortion. But we also know that Johnny Walker of Soledad Brothers (and more) played slide on Suzy Lee and I fought Piranhas. According to an interview with Johnny Walker it was him who taught Jack to play slide. How much was debated in a recent episode on the Striped podcast by Ben Blackwell, but it is interesting that this track features a slide without the Johnny Walker attribution. So it must be Jack playing. I wonder whether this track was recorded before or after Johnny Walkers instructions. You could say that the slide on Suzy and Piranhas is more delicate and melodic. Here it's "just" deliciously distorted.
The version on the 7" is different in many ways:
This one is much more true to Johnson's version. More slower, more bluesy. The basic riff during the verse even sounds pretty similar if more distorted to Johnson's original (I have actually not tried to replicate it, to see how different they are, but they're at least similar in style). Still the track is much longer than Johnson's version, this one clocking in at 5min40s-ish - mostly due to a couple of and long delicious slide riffs and the fact that Jack adds an extra verse.
For the lyrics part, Jack is singing the verses in a different order than on the album version and as mentioned, he adds an extra verse, by repeating verse 3. He goes: 1, 3, 2, 3. Content is pretty much the same except for one verse 2 (which is verse 3 in the 7" version), where he on the album version goes:
You Saturday night women
You love to
Ape and crown
You won't do nothin' but tear good mans
Reputation down
...
but on the 7" version goes:
You Saturday night women
You love to
Ape and crown
You won't do nothin' but tear Jack White's
Reputation down
...
where he's inserting his name into the song, same as he's also doing in other old blues covers such as "Lord send me an angel".
This version is an interesting look into The White Stripes at this point in their career. Ben Blackwell mentions on the Striped podcast that they play this song very unlike the album version when they play it live. This is probably what we're hearing in this version.
This really is a beautiful and true to the roots version of a great blues classic and it will always be one of my favorite White Stripes live recordings.
