The purity of a white orchid is often associated with innocence and elegance. The beautiful petals evoke sophistication and dignity. In some cultures, they symbolize new beginnings and are used in weddings. Other cultures associate the white orchid with funerals. What if an orchid turns blue? Let’s take a look at the meaning behind “Blue Orchid” by The White Stripes.
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You got a reaction
You got a reaction, didn’t you?
You took a white orchid
You took a white orchid turned it blue
“And Then that Riff Came Out”
“The only thing we could do with it was to have it be the first song on the album, and it just sort of saved the record when we were recording,” Jack White, lead singer for The White Stripes, told NPR’s Terry Gross on NPR in 2005. “Everything was going wrong, and it’s never really happened before. Everything was broken, the tape machine was breaking, and the faucet was leaking, the ceiling was leaking in the house, and, I don’t know, everything was going wrong. It just seemed like we were cursed, left and right, and then that riff came out in the middle of the recording, and I wrote that song, and it turned everything around to this real positive nature, I think. It was just really emotional for a long time. There was like three weeks recording, and that came in the three days before we finished.”
Something better than nothing
Something better than nothing it’s giving up
We all need to do something
Try and keep the truth from showing up
“I Have Nothing to Do with It”
White told Dan Rather in 2014, “Michael Jackson said one time, ‘You have to let God in the room,’ I think that’s true. You have to sit there and relinquish all control. I think people think, when you write and you create, you’re the person in control, and you’re making all this happen as if you are, you know, some kind of magician or something. But it’s not really that. You sit there, and you become an antenna, and you just let things happen through you. And the more you let it happen, the more you relinquish control, though, I think the more beautiful it is. It becomes something that has almost nothing to do with you. And the songs, if people like the songs, and they get played on the radio or sold at stores, and get played in bars around the world or whatever, they’re not yours anymore. They have nothing to do with you anymore. If I hear a song of mine someplace, it’s almost like I have nothing to do with it, and I love that feeling. It’s great.”
How dare you
How old are you now, anyway?
How dare you
How old are you now, anyway?
“You Have to Hear This Riff”
Ben Blackwell, the official archivist of The White Stripes, told SPIN magazine in 2020, “Get Behind Me Satan was the only album that was recorded that I actually sat in and actually witnessed portions of the recording. I was living in Detroit at the time, and I was kind of just a runner. I remember it was a Sunday night. I believe it was the night of the Oscars in 2005. We’re sitting around—me, Jack, Meg [White], Matthew Kettle, the engineer, and that’s it. I wasn’t even there half of the time. I went to get dinner from a Mexican restaurant that was about a 15-minute drive from Jack’s house. I come back, and Jack is practically dragging me into the house. ‘Ben, you have to hear this riff,’ he said. He stands and starts playing ‘Blue Orchid’ for me.”
How dare you
How old are you now, anyway?
You’re given a flower
But I guess that there’s just no pleasing you
Your lips taste sour
But you think that it’s just me teasing you
Polyphonic Octave Generator
“The big revelation for ‘Blue Orchid’ was that he had this POG [Polyphonic Octave Generator] pedal, which is an Electro-Harmonix pedal,” Blackwell continued. “Jack found this setting on the POG and he had found the riff that made sense to him. He sat there and was so stoked, playing it to the point where he ran to the de facto control room of the studio setup, and he wanted to help tweak the sounds that were hitting the tape in terms of EQ or mixing balance. He said, ‘Can you just play the riff?’ He’d only written it maybe 20 minutes earlier, and he’s teaching it to me. So I’m sitting there for 5-10 minutes just playing that one riff while they’re dialing everything in. That was released as the first single from Get Behind Me Satan maybe six weeks after it was written. The quote of that night was when Jack said, ‘Man, this song makes me want to play festivals, and I hate festivals.”
The White Stripes played their fair share of festivals whether he liked them or not.
You got a reaction
You got a reaction, didn’t you?
You took a white orchid
You took a white orchid turned it blue
Get behind me
Get behind me now, anyway
Get behind me
Get behind me now, anyway
The Remains of An Old Piano
The white orchid represents purity. Turning it blue insinuates abuse or a violation. White likes to work in these areas where the listener can interpret it in many ways. The music video for “Blue Orchid” features White’s future wife Karen Elson, snakes, a horse, a ramshackle house with the remains of an old piano, and Jack and Meg White parading around in an other-worldly way. The song has been featured in Rick and Morty, The Green Hornet, It Might Get Loud, Looking for Alaska, Forces of Nature, and Guitar Hero 5.
Get behind me
Get behind me now, anyway
You got a reaction
You got a reaction, didn’t you?
You took a white orchid
You took a white orchid turned it blue
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Photo by John Shearer/WireImage for Warner Bros. Records
