Ranking the White Stripes' 25 essential songs

A look at some defining songs of Detroit's future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers

Legendary Detroit garage rock duo the White Stripes recently were announced as members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025. Photo provided | Tim Roney/Getty Images

Whether you believed they were sister and brother, husband and wife or just a pair of musical kindred spirits, when Jack and Meg White put the red and white on, they were in their creative zone.

Graduating from his role as a drummer and guitarist in several Detroit garage bands including Two Part Resin, Goober and the Peas, the Go and The Hentchmen, Jack (then Jack Gillis) found an instant creative partner in Meg White after the two met while she was working at a restaurant he’d perform open mic poetry at.

The two immediately began hanging out before marrying in 1996 (Jack took Meg’s surname). A year later, they discovered lightning in a bottle in their little room when Meg took up the drums to help Jack channel garage rock through the blues.

“The whole point of the White Stripes is the liberation of limiting yourself,” Jack White once told Rolling Stone.

That mission served the duo well across six albums, six Grammys, a generational anthem and a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025. From early Detroit garage obscurity to being one of the defining THE bands of the media’s early 2000s “rock revival” to becoming bona fide rock superstars and household names, the former waitress and furniture upholsterer have done quite well for themselves.

Despite all the lore and mystery surrounding the White Stripes’ origins and the nature of their relationship, their jams are characterized as being direct, raw and real. While Meg’s minimal approach behind the kit has been criticized as holding back Jack’s imaginative playing, it’s no coincidence Jack hasn’t been able to recapture the same primal studio magic with more seasoned drummers. The chemistry is undeniable.

After diving back into the band’s discography following the announcement of their Hall of Fame status, it became obvious that any number of songs I chose to “rank” wouldn’t be enough. There are some who love the innocent schoolyard acoustic ballads more than the classic bluesy garage rockers, and vice versa. Some might even throw in a Meg White piano ballad or two. It’s just as easy to find someone whose life was changed by Little Acorns or Truth Doesn’t Make a Noise (two of the songs that barely missed this list!) as the band’s more high profile singles.

Beyond that, the band’s progression from its spartan 1997 debut single Let’s Shake Hands to the bombastic guitar/overdubbed trumpet combo on its final single Conquest illustrates how far the duo were able to stretch the Stripes’ sound universe with the usual “3” elements Jack White famously insisted it stick to using in its straightforward recordings.

Challenges aside, I’ve attempted to assemble a list of the 25 White Stripes songs I would consider essential. Please let me know what your favorite songs are and which songs I should have included. (Also, Radio Amor is off next week while I’m on vacation. Enjoy the list and the White Stripes playlist below)

25. Death Letter

I can’t think of a more appropriate way to kick off this list than the Stripes paying homage to one Jack White’s most cited influences and the song of the Delta blues. The garage-ified Son House cover is one of many nods to House and the blues in The Whites Stripes’ catalogue, showcasing the authenticity required to reimagine and produce a truly unique version of a song covered countless times. Recorded on eight-track tape in Jack White’s living room, Death Letter is a perfect early-career example of the band’s boundless ambition and ability to make any classic feel like its own.

24. The Denial Twist

It’s hard to find a worthy challenger to The Denial Twist claiming the title as Jack White’s best freestyle. Much like companion piano rocker My Doorbell from the band’s fifth album Get Behind Me Satan, The Denial Twist builds steady momentum behind a catchy melody and White’s rapid fire musings on love and relationships. As White looked for new ways to expand the duo’s sound palette, he relied on Meg’s steady beat to keep songs like The Denial Twist focused on sharp songwriting.

23. Rag and Bone

Jack and Meg are back to having fun on Rag and Bone as a pair of seasoned junk collectors. The largely spoken word single from the band’s final album Icky Thump was released for free inside an issue of NME magazine, serving as one final mysterious, unconventional act in a career filled with them. During part of the song’s spoken narrative, Jack describes the duo as being able to find use in things other people don’t want or don’t see value in. We can do something with ‘em/We’ll make something out of ‘em, he says, seemingly speaking to the band’s ability to repurpose old music as something new. It’s another example of the band’s ability to find treasure amongst the trash.

22. Jimmy the Exploder

At some point, I decided there was only room for one of the unreal trio of garage rock classics that open The White Stripes’ self-titled debut album. While Jack more than pulls off the exceptional, rocking cover of Robert Johnson’s Stop Breaking Down before rattling off classic early single and Detroit automaker takedown The Big Three Killed My Baby, there is a primal urgency Jimmy the Exploder supplies as the album’s opening track that is hard to overstate. The thrashing guitar combined with Meg’s slyly rocking drums and White’s 16 emphatic hoos! prove the band was seeing red out of the gates.

21. The Same Boy You’ve Always Known

Jack White’s best ballads are often his most simple and introspective, and many of them rest within the band’s commercial breakthrough album White Blood Cells. On The Same Boy You’ve Always Known, White’s tenderness on the end of a relationship turns inward, forcing him to confront his shortcomings on the vaguely stated relationship. Biting lines like, Pretty tough to think about the beginning of December and If there’s anything good about me, I’m the only one who knows, ensure that the song’s lonely sentiment sticks with you.

20. We’re Going To Be Friends

It might be a little puzzling to see one of The White Stripes’ most popular songs rated so low on this list, but there’s an easy explanation for that. Not a big fan! Still, I can separate my personal feelings enough to acknowledge We’re Going To Be Friends is a well-written song that effectively captures the duo’s occasional fascination with innocence through the eyes of two schoolchildren. The line about the ants and worms is endearing enough. We’re Going To Be Friends was good enough for the opening credits of Napoleon Dynamite, as well, helping further spread the band’s influence and solidify the song’s status as one of its most celebrated acoustic tunes.

19. Apple Blossom

Put your troubles in a little pile, and I will sort ‘em out for you, Jack White’s protagonist claims behind a devious sounding piano on Apple Blossom. The De Stijl standout is an early showcase of another side of The Stripes built behind some of the sharpest storytelling of White’s career. A music video later released for Apple Blossom as part of the band’s greatest hits collection brings to life the song’s story of a woman leaving her life behind and seeking refuge in another land. As her boat washes ashore, she finds love in the island’s lone occupant living in a lighthouse. The two escape the island together at the song’s conclusion as the lighthouse burns down in a fitting end to one of the band’s best love songs.

18. Hand Springs

Little from The White Stripes’ catalogue resembles anything close to Hand Springs, a single from a split seven-inch with fellow Detroit garage rock royalty The Dirtbombs. A spoken word ripper, Hand Springs finds Jack White bowling with his girl at the Red Door before losing his cool when another guy playing pinball begins hitting on her. The song’s power chord eruptions separate the evolving tension in the dynamic between the trio, with the protagonist dropping his bowling ball through the guy’s pinball machine. Although his girl leaves with the spring-handed stranger, Hand Springs supplies an early nugget of wisdom from the band’s catalog that cooler heads prevail.

17. Screwdriver

Give one listen to Screwdriver, the standout rocker from The White Stripes’ debut album, and tell me what you’re hearing. Delta blues? Check. Zeppelin? Check. Early garage rock ala The Sonics? Got it. All of the essential, desirable elements of what make the band so hard to pin down were there from the beginning on Screwdriver -- the first song Jack White wrote for the band. I got a little feeling goin’ now, White screams repeatedly as the song boils over. Screwdriver got it going and the band never lost it across six albums.

16. Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine

This late album stunner is a big reason Elephant still has a reputation as the band’s biggest rock album. Beyond the obvious bonus points the band gets for sculpting a hook around the word Acetaminophen, the song boasts some of the best shredding in The White Stripes’ catalogue behind the unmistakable tone produced by Jack White’s famed Electro-Harmonix Big Muff pedal.

15. Little Cream Soda

The foundation for one of the most furious riffs in The White Stripes’ catalog came courtesy of an improvised 2003 live performance Jack White resurrected and repurposed four years later on Icky Thump’s Little Cream Soda. What the album version lacks in the live version’s brilliant spontaneity, it more than makes up for in heft, delivering one of the most deliciously crunchy songs in the band’s catalog out of thin air.

14. My Doorbell

I wasn’t sure I was in love with the band’s reliance on the use of the piano and other non-guitar-like instruments to change up its sound on its 2005 Elephant follow-up Get Behind Me Satan, but this is one of a couple of exceptions. White is in full hip-hop/rock lyrical delivery mode behind My Doorbell’s sticky melody, showing the Stripes are capable of delivering rocking earworms without White’s ear-splitting guitar.

13. Cannon

Only a band like The White Stripes could write a song like Cannon and get away with it. A reimagined take on and nod to Son House’s blues standard John the Revelator, Cannon contains vast lyrical references to religion and images of war that collide behind a raw garage rock riff and exploding kick drum. It’s the band’s equivalent of a musical exorcism that remains a favorite of White’s live sets.

12. The Hardest Button to Button

It is true, in my opinion, that The Hardest Button to Button is propped up ever so slightly by Seven Nation Army, its “guitar that sounds like bass” soulmate from the band’s high water mark album Elephant. The song’s legacy is also padded by another classic, trippy music video from go-to producer Michel Gondry that was later spoofed when the band was immortalized as guests in an episode of The Simpsons. Even if you remove all of that lore, The Hardest Button to Button remains one of the catchiest and most enduring singles of the band’s career, sticking to its legacy like pancake batter.

11. Little Bird

Every studio album The White Stripes ever released featured a song with the word “little” in the title. What does it mean? I don’t know … maybe nothing? What I do know is Little Bird is the best of the bunch, maintaining its position as an early career standout behind a bluesy jam that feels like a highlight reel of Led Zeppelin riffs.

10. Blue Orchid

Where did this guitar tone come from? The first single off Get Behind Me Satan sounds unlike anything else the band previously recorded, and I just couldn’t love it enough. Switching from his Big Muff Pi pedal to a Digitech Whammy on the song’s solo, Jack White’s guitar component use speculation has long been the subject of message board debate. It’s also debatable who the song is about, with White’s falsetto seemingly describing the end of a relationship he later denied was about then-ex Renee Zellweger.

9. Black Math

If you’re looking for that immediately rewarding, pin your ears back jam, Black Math is a top shelf choice in The White Stripes’ catalog. The deep fried guitar solo once again allows White to play guitar hero behind his not so subtle showcasing of the Big Muff Pi pedal. An early album stunner, Black Math is the only logical choice to follow legendary opener Seven Nation Army, somehow upping the ante on a generational anthem.

8. The Union Forever

Sentimental pick or underappreciated deep cut? I honestly haven’t been able to glean much about the legacy of The Union Forever to make that call. The song’s numerous references to lines in the classic film Citizen Kane add an air of mystery from the get-go, including its painfully delivered opening lines, It can’t be love, for there is no true love (Warner Bros. apparently considered suing the band for its uses of the lines from the film). From its unorthodox chord progression to drumstick-clicking silence that precedes another Kane monologue (also famously ripped off by The Simpsons), The Union Forever is truly one of one in the band song rolodex. The song’s all-or-nothing sentiment had a huge impact on my impressionable ears, with lines like What would I liked to have been? Everything you hate landing like a ton of bricks.

7. Fell in Love With a Girl

When you hear the adrenaline rush power chords that usher in Fell in Love With A Girl, it’s hard to not immediately convert into a fan. One of the defining songs of the famed “garage rock revival” of 2001, the song and its LEGO-themed music video were all it took to convert me into a hardcore fan as a clueless 19-year-old. True to its title, this love song includes plenty of clever turns of phrase that give it timeless pop punk appeal.

6. Icky Thump

Icky Thump feels like the Megatron of White Stripes songs -- an undefeatable, towering jam the band spent their entire careers concocting in its evolution. Comically muscular and confrontational in every way, Icky Thump sums up and celebrates 14 years of the duo’s little/big ideas: Its ability to squeeze every drop out of every riff; to pack in every cocky line decrying ignorance; to shoehorn in every nod to classic rock’s finest moments. As far as send-offs go, they don’t come more fully realized than this.

5. Hello Operator

The White Stripes have a knack for doing a lot with a little. It’s kind of their whole thing. The raw, minimal approach is perfected on De Stjl’s lone single Hello Operator, the band’s defining early bluesy garage rock song. All it takes to make Hello Operator a classic is White’s simple but instantly memorable guitar riff, later elevated by John Szymanski’s timely and righteous harmonica solo.

4. Hotel Yorba

This classic’s for Detroit and its wonderful little dump, the Hotel Yorba. Tucked in the southwest corner of the city you can see its giant letters from the Fisher Freeway (the band recorded the single version of the song in the hotel). The Beatles were rumored to have stayed there -- a rumor Jack White confirmed wasn’t true. Still, he loved the lore and found it funny and wanted to build some of his band’s own lore around it. The first single on White Blood Cells, the poppy country rocker finds the once-married duo who were mythically alleged to be brother and sister, fantasizing about a simple life together. I guess you could call that lore.

3. Ball and Biscuit

Sitting in the middle of Elephant is the simmering enigma that is Ball and Biscuit, just waiting to explode into some of Jack White’s filthiest riffing as a White Stripe. We hear from the legendary third man and seventh son, possessing superhuman strength and ready to shout from his soapbox. It comes off as a lofty statement to write a song about sex that is also trying to resurrect the blues in rock and roll. It didn’t always register with everyone, including Pitchfork’s Brent DiCrescenzo, who famously lambasted the song and album. Despite some of the song’s initial baggage, it has become the people’s champ, once winning a Rolling Stone fan vote as Jack White’s best song of all time. Throw in Ball and Biscuit’s retrospective use in the opening of 2010’s The Social Network and you’ve got a defining rock song of its era.

2. Dead Leaves And the Dirty Ground

Striking in its simplicity and sharp lyrical imagery, Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground feels like a revelation opening The White Stripes’ breakthrough third album White Blood Cells. Ditching the blues covers and Detroit garage rock for more spare and focused arrangements, the song alternates between beautifully chaotic guitar distortion and isolated verses describing a love who has moved on. Dead Leaves’ simple guitar riff hits like a heavyweight title bout punch. Each line feels raw and real.

Popping the CD in my six-CD masterpiece inside my college apartment, the song was my introduction to a new favorite band after previously falling in love with The Strokes a few months later. Like many surface level listening 20-somethings my age, the band’s breakthrough single Fell in Love With a Girl was my introduction to the band with its immediately rewarding punk energy. As someone still devoted to listening to New Found Glory and blink 182, that was more my thing anyway. Hearing Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground immediately changed that, introducing me to a new world of garage and indie rock. Other than immediately going back and purchasing the band’s first two albums and pretending I always loved them, I’ve never looked back.

1. Seven Nation Army

Where did you expect to find the song with the most recognizable guitar riff of the 21st century? You know, the one all the people belligerently chant in unison at sporting events. The guitar riff. Not lyrics from the song. The same riff that has been described as the world’s most recognizable song and the biggest sports anthem on the planet. Even if it isn’t my all-time favorite song, where am I gonna put it -- No. 7? Yes, Seven Nation Army is a classic, and not just because of that larger than life seven-note, pitch shifted passage many initially swore was a bass guitar. Written about the trappings of fame in the wake of his divorce to Meg, Jack White said the song is about gossip.

And yet, it feels more mythical and consequential behind the all-important riff and hypnotic, thudding kick drum. True to its lyrics, the song embodies making sweat drip out of every pore. The lines about going to Wichita and the Queen of England and the Hounds of Hell are embedded in the culture without any real attachment to their origins (Jack White claims he’s never been to Wichita and never will out of respect to the song). Whether your love for the song is associated with belting it out at the top of your lungs at a football game or being mesmerized by another great music video produced by Michel Gondry, it’s clear Seven Nation Army is worthy of its instantly recognizable status.