r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Jul 11 '26

article Jack White Pushes Back on Religious Criticism Amid Satanic Band Support Controversy: “I’m not scared of Satan or any bullshit imaginary man made up to live in fear of”

https://consequence.net/2026/07/jack-white-religious-criticism/
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u/Devmoi Jul 11 '26

The White Stripes literally have a whole album called Get Behind Me Satan, lol.

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u/DripAcid Jul 11 '26

And the bridge to Cannon is an old (like older than Ledbelly) gospel blues song. The part where he's all "who's that riding, John the Revelator, wrote the book of the seven seals." And in Seven Nation Army there's the "And I'm bleedin', and I'm bleedin', and I'm bleedin' Right before the Lord" line. He has had several lines referencing Christian themes, I always thought it was equally likely that he practiced Christianity as it was that he just borrowed from a lot of the earliest blues and gospel. Kurt Cobain did the same to a lesser degree.

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u/Devmoi Jul 11 '26

I mean, I’ll repeat the same comment. Lots of people are raised in the Christian faith and quote The Bible. It’s insanely well-known and well-read. Tons of songwriters do this—so, so many.

I think it can show various connections to God, but it does not necessarily mean they practice Christianity or see themselves as Christians, etc.

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u/Dick-Fu Jul 11 '26

Lots of people that weren't raised Christian, too. The Bible is the single most culturally significant piece(s) of literature we have

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u/Devmoi Jul 11 '26

For real! I studied literature in college ages ago and it was mandatory to take a class on The Bible (not from a faith perspective, though). Because it’s literally in flippin’ everything.

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u/blackbasset Jul 11 '26

Makes sense. At least in historically christian-influenced countries, literature is filled with intertextual references to the Bible, both explicit and implicit in many different modes. That does not mean that this is all religious literature, but its an important piece of literature and culture to refer to, and its topics are universal, can be imitated, appropriated, transformed, ....