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A seven nation army couldn't hold this song back
Friday 19th October 2012 | Mary-Cate
Walking through the streets of Pamplona at this year’s opening day of the Running of the Bulls festival one sees some pretty unfamiliar sights: everyone dressed in red and white, sangria being flung by strangers at strangers and the Spanish spraying water from their balconies onto the crowds below. Despite this the streets echoed with an oddly familiar sound – the seven notes from the White Stripes most successful song ‘Seven Nation Army’ (below). Surely you’ve heard the catchy and almost threatening riff that opens the song: duhhh duh duh duh duhduh duhhhhhh.
Sounding like a bass rife it’s actually Jack White’s semi-acoustic guitar through a DigiTech Whammy pedal. The rife underlies the whole song and conjures an ominous feeling that impending danger may explode at any moment and conquer the world. Maybe that’s why it has been adopted by a host of European countries as an anthem for sporting events. It became the Anthem of Italy’s World Cup win in 2006 and was used in 2008 as teams walked out into the stadium. This year the rife dominated the UEFA Euro 2012 being played every time a goal was scored. Beyond sport and for the record it also rang out in Munich at this years Oktoberfest beer festival in Germany.
How did Jack White and sport collide? At a guess perhaps it was the words of the song that first appealed - “I'm gonna fight 'em all. A seven nation army couldn't hold me back”. Or maybe it’s the menacing tone of the riff that also happens to lend itself so easily to repetition. Either way the song has established itself as one of the most widely embraced sporting anthems of our era.
And what does Jack White think about this? According to The Independent, he says, "[n]othing is more beautiful than when people embrace a melody and allow it to enter the pantheon of folk music. As a songwriter it is something impossible to plan. Especially in modern times."
Mary-Cate Byrne
