Seven Nation Army

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"Seven Nation Army"
Song

"Seven Nation Army" is the first track on the album Elephant by American alternative rock band The White Stripes. It was released as a single in 2003. Seven Nation Army reached #1 on the Modern Rock Tracks for three weeks and won 2004's Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. The song is known for its underlying riff, which plays throughout most of the song. Although it sounds like a bass guitar (an instrument the group had famously never previously used), the sound is actually created by running Jack White's semi-acoustic guitar (a 1950s style Kay Hollowbody) through a Digitech Whammy pedal set down an octave. The riff was composed at a sound check before a show at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, according to the set notes in the booklet which accompanied the Under Blackpool Lights DVD. This riff was inspired by the main theme of Anton Bruckner's Fifth symphony.

According to White, "Seven Nation Army" is what he used to call the Salvation Army as a child.[1]. The song ranked #1 on UpVenue's 10 best The White Stripes songs[2]

The song has been covered by the country music group The Oak Ridge Boys, Funk Metal band Living Colour.[3], and Rock supergroup Audioslave.

Music video

The video, directed by Alex and Martin, consists of one seemingly continuous shot through a kaleidoscopic tunnel of mirrored black, white and red triangles, touching on Jack's love of the number three. Some triangle slides contain images of Jack or Meg playing, and at some points marching skeletons and an elephant can be seen, referring to the name of the album "Seven Nation Army" appeared on. As the pace of the song speeds up, the speed that one triangle passes through the tunnel speeds up, and as it slows, the speed through the tunnel slows in unison. During the video, when the song begins to intensify, the lights in surrounding the triangles flash and other effects build up as well.

Single track listing

  1. "Seven Nation Army" (Jack White)
  2. "Good to Me" (Brendan Benson/Jason Falkner)
  3. "Black Jack Davey" (Traditional)

The 7" single only contains the first two tracks.

Reception

Critical

This song was number six on Rolling Stone's 2009 list of the 50 Best Songs of the Decade.[4] In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Seven Nation Army" at number 8 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.[5] In September 2005, NME placed "Seven Nation Army" at number 5 in its list of the 50 Greatest Tracks Of The Decade.[6] It was also called the 75th greatest hard rock song by VH1. In May 2008, Rolling Stone placed this song at number 21 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.[7] "Seven Nation Army" also earned 20th place in Triple J's Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. The song was also listed at #30 on Pitchfork Media's top 500 songs of the 2000s, and at number 2 in Observer Music Monthly's top 75 songs of the decade, behind Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love". It also came in second on Channel V Australia's top 1000 songs of the 00s. In 2009, US website Consequence of Sound named this as their top rock track of the 2000s,[8] as did Boston's WFNX Radio.[9] On Rolling Stone's updated version of their The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, "Seven Nation Army" was listed at number 286.[10] It was also ranked #1 on Rhapsody's list of the Top 100 Tracks of the Decade.[11]

Popular

The song is very popular in European football stadiums even becoming the anthem of the Italians' world cup win in 2006 and of the Euro 2008.[12] The song is also played at home games of Australian team Melbourne Victory following a team goal, the song has become an almost un-official anthem for the club's fans. It was also featured on the February 1, 2011 broadcast of Democracy Now!, where it was linked to the massive pro-democracy demonstrations then occurring in Egypt.[13] Speaking with Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy, host Amy Goodman said "That music is in your ears and head all the time, you said, Mona," to which Eltahawy replied:

It’s a loop, Amy, because every time I hear the opening lines—"I’m going to fight them off. A seven-nation army couldn’t hold me back"—it just takes me to Egypt, where people—I’ve never seen anything like it. Literally, nothing can hold them back. Mubarak shuts down the internet, shuts down the train system, shuts down almost the entire country, and still they come. It’s beautiful.[13]

Chart performance

Chart (2003–2008) Peak
position
Australian ARIA Charts 17
Austrian Singles Chart 18
German Singles Chart [14] 4
Italian Singles Chart 3
Irish Singles Chart 22
Dutch Mega Top 50 22
UK Singles Chart 7
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 76
U.S. Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks 12
U.S. Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks 1

Year-end charts

Chart (2008) Rank
German Singles Chart [15] 57

Certifications

Country Certifications
(sales thresholds)
Germany [16] Gold

References

  1. ^ "True believers: The White Stripes live out their rock-and-roll fantasy". Boston Phoenix. April 17, 2003. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
  2. ^ "Top 10 White Stripes Songs".
  3. ^ Five-Star Fridays, The Agitator (Mar. 25, 2011)
  4. ^ Hermes, Will; Hoard, Christian; Rosen, Jody; Sheffield, Rob (December 24, 2009), "50 Best Songs of the Decade". Rolling Stone. (1094/1095):59-62
  5. ^ RockList.net (2005). "Q magazine - 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks Ever!". rocklistmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-06-27.
  6. ^ RockList.net (2005). "The Greatest Tracks Of The Decade 1996–2006". rocklistmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-06-27.
  7. ^ Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time
  8. ^ Seven Nation Army Songfacts
  9. ^ WFNX's top 101 songs of the decade, Boston Phoenix. Retrieved February 5, 2009.
  10. ^ [1][dead link]
  11. ^ Editorial, Rhapsody (2009-12-09). "Top 100 Tracks of the Decade - Rhapsody SoundBoard". Blog.rhapsody.com. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
  12. ^ Seven Nation Army: the indiest football anthem ever?, guardian.co.uk
  13. ^ a b "Mubarak is Our Berlin Wall": Egyptian Columnist Mona Eltahawy on How the Youth Drove the Uprising in Cairo and Implications for Democracy in the Region, Democracy Now! (Feb. 1, 2011)
  14. ^ musicline.de / PhonoNet GmbH. "Die ganze Musik im Internet: Charts, News, Neuerscheinungen, Tickets, Genres, Genresuche, Genrelexikon, Künstler-Suche, Musik-Suche, Track-Suche, Ticket-Suche". musicline.de. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
  15. ^ [2][dead link]
  16. ^ Template:Cite gold platin

External links

Preceded by Billboard Modern Rock Tracks number-one single
July 12, 2003 		Succeeded by
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