Jack White makes a distinction between political speech and political art, explaining to The Guardian, “When Dylan said the answer was blowing in the wind, he didn’t tell you what the answer was.”
White is no stranger to using his platform to blast Donald Trump, mocking the president on Instagram and calling for his removal from office. But as his thoughts on Dylan demonstrate, he believes we interact with music in different ways than we do everyday speech.
“I think a lot of people in the protest days were torn: you want to make a statement but the speaker can be chewed up and spat out,” White said. “The search for hypocrisy becomes intense once somebody takes the podium and condemns somebody else. When it comes to the president, I know a lot about it so I feel comfortable saying it. But if I were to put it in artistic form, I don’t think I would say those things directly. I wouldn’t say the names. I would make up a character.”
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Something similar happened with “Archbishop Harold Holmes,” a scorcher off his latest album, No Name. The song was based on a real letter from a traveling evangelist in the 1970s.
“Archbishop Harold Holmes is maybe the ultimate version of that. It’s somebody else’s letter. Basically a religious conman – a grifter. What if I were to become this guy for a minute and add more modern verbiage? I used it as a springboard to talk about these kinds of characters who are still alive and well right now in our own government.”
Elsewhere in his interview with The Guardian, White discussed why he isn’t a fan of the Taylor Swift-style of autobiographical lyrics.
If you’d like, you can revisit our 2024 Jack White cover story.
