Jack White Song Quotations

I have so much music inside me I'm just trying to stay afloat. I don't tend to write for a particular band - you have to just write the songs and then let God into the room and let the music tell you what to do.

The main things to rebel against - over-production, too much technology, overthinking. It's a spoiled mentality; everything is too easy. If you want to record a song, you can buy Pro Tools and record four hundred guitar tracks. That leads to overthinking, which kills any spontaneity and the humanity of the performance.

You can't steal an artist's songs and also tell him he can't license that music to a commercial.

Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters.

If you're asking if I would be foolish enough, or insulting enough, to write about people in my life that I respect and sell it to the masses as a "break-up song," I can't imagine doing that to people I love.

In all my songs, I take on roles and play characters. It's a unique way to explore ideas and decisions I might not think or make in real life.

It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.

I've always worked to find really deep meaning of song and also at the same time having it covered in sugar, so it can be taken two or three different ways.

I certainly wouldn't want a song that I'd already written to be used on a commercial. That seems strange.

I would never purposely sing a song about someone I love, I wouldn't want to embarrass them. But for someone I don't like... I would definitely do that.