He’s a Jack-of-all musical trades. Whether he’s raging through the combustible rock of The White Stripes to his primal drumming for The Dead Weather and adding more to his song collection with The Raconteurs and his solo catalog, Jack White has mastered many musical crafts in more than two decades.
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White’s collaborations course around playing on and producing Loretta Lynn‘s 2004 album Van Lear Rose to writing a James Bond theme song—”Another Way To Die,” featuring Alicia Keys—and deconstructing guitar playing with The Edge and Jimmy Page in his 2009 documentary, It Might Get Loud.
[RELATED: Jack White’s Daughter Scarlett Joins Him Onstage for White Stripes Song Performance]
Along with other collaborations with Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and Jeff Beck, among many others, White has also acted in nearly 20 films, runs Third Man Records and a vinyl pressing plant, an upholstery and design company, and is still experimenting and extending his own archive of songs, including his fourth and fifth albums, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive from 2022.
Though his catalog is already expansive enough on its own, leave it to White to pen a few more songs for other artists.
Here’s a look at three songs White wrote outside his own songbook.
1. “Go It Alone,” Beck (2005)
Written by Jack White, Beck, and the Dust Brothers’ King Gizmo (John King) and Mike Simpson
For his ninth album, Guero, Beck collaborated with The Beastie Boys on the opening track “E-Pro,” and the songwriting and production duo of the Dust Brothers (Paul’s Boutique) on a majority of the entire 13 tracks. Jack White also jumped on board, penning “Go It Alone.”
I’m coming over
See me down at the station by the lane
With my hands in my pocket
Jingling a wish coin
That I stole from a fountain
That was drownin’ all the cares in the whole world
When I get older
Climbing up on the back porch fence
Just to see the dogs runnin’
With a ring and a question
And my shivering voice is singing
Through a crack in the window
2. “Two Against One,” Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi (2011)
Written by Jack White
Jack White wrote three tracks on the 2011 collaborative album, Rome, from Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and Italian composer Daniele Luppi, including the album opener “The Rose with the Broken Neck” and the closer, “The World,” and something in between with the moody “Two Against One.” White recorded each track using different vocal ranges—bass, alto, and tenor—and Burton mixed them all together like a three-prong vocal.
Make no mistake I don’t do anything for free
I keep my enemies closer than my mirror ever gets to me
And if you think that there is shelter in this attitude
Wait til you feel the warmth of my gratitude
I get the feeling that it’s two against one
I’m already fighting me, so what’s another one
The mirror is a trigger and your mouth’s a gun
Lucky for me, I’m not the only one
3. “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” Beyoncé (2016)
Written by Jack White, Beyoncé, Diana Gordon; also credited are Led Zeppelin’s James Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham
Co-written and produced by White, “Don’t Hurt Yourself” was his sole offering for Beyoncé‘s 2016 album, Lemonade.
“I just talked to her and she said, ‘I wanna be in a band with you,'” said White of his conversation with Beyoncé. “I said, ‘Really? Well, I’d love to do something.’ I’ve always loved her voice. I mean, I think she has the kind of soul-singing voice of the days of Betty Davis or Aretha Franklin. She took just sort of a sketch of a lyrical outline and turned it into the most bodacious, vicious, incredible song. I don’t even know what you’d classify it as—soul, rock, and roll, whatever. “Don’t Hurt Yourself” is incredibly intense; I’m so amazed at what she did with it.
[RELATED: Behind the Meaning and History of “Portland Oregon” by Loretta Lynn and Jack White]
The track, which also samples Led Zeppelin‘s 1971 classic “When the Levee Breaks,” picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance and was also part of a one-hour Lemonade film around the album.
Motivate your ass, call me Malcolm X
Yo operator, or innovator
Fuck you hater, you can’t recreate her no
You’ll never recreate her no
Photo by Paige Sara / Big Hassle PR
