The Hardest Button To Button Icky Thump The White Stripes

The Hardest Button To Button Album: Elephant (2003)
Icky Thump Album: Icky Thump (2007)
by The White Stripes

On the White Stripes FAQ, Jack White is quoted as saying this about the song: "There's a button at the top of my navy peacoat, and it's the hardest button to button. I thought that was a great metaphor for the off man out in the family. It also comes from sayings of my father, like 'My uncle Harold had a 10 button vest but he could only fasten 8.'"

In the Michel Gondry-directed video, Jack White's amp and Meg White's drum kit trail behind on every beat as they travel through a town. They had 32 amps and 32 drum kits for the shoot.

The video was parodied on an episode of The Simpsons where Jack and Meg guest starred. Gondry also directed the clips for The White Stripes' "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground," "The Denial Twist," and "Fell In Love With A Girl."

Beck makes a cameo in the video for this song. When Jack sings "and a box with somethin' in it" Beck presents him with a box.

According to the July 2007 issue of GQ magazine, Jack White once wanted to record a music video for this song based on a film of Thomas Edison killing an elephant using a Tesla coil (Jim Jarmusch was going to direct, Philip Seymour Hoffman was to star).

Third Man photographer David Swanson recalled his contribution to this song in an Uncut interview:

"I was there with Jack and Meg, filming and photography in the making of the album. There was too much feedback in between the verse riffs, so Jack tried to turn on a compressor pedal to kill it. But it became a nuisance, so I was enlisted to play the compressor pedal on the song, turning it off and on between every riff."

On the UK music show Later With Jools Holland (June 1, 2007), Jack White explained that he had heard his British wife, model Karen Elson, use the expression "Ecky Thump," a Northern English phrase that means "What The Heck." He changed it to the more American sounding "Icky" (meaning disgusting) so that teenagers would get it, citing how Led Zeppelin dropped the "A" in "Lead" for the same reason. Jack liked the expression and wrote the song around it with his bandmate Meg White.

Candy cane is a traditional American red and white striped Christmas candy. The White Stripes use only these colors (often in stripes) and black in their sets and costumes.

The "Dry Ice" mentioned in the lyrics refers to solid carbon dioxide, which is typically used in horror films to create artificial fog.

This was voted by the Rolling Stone magazine readers as their favorite song of 2007.

This won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals. The album won for Best Alternative Music Album.

Jack White mentions all three of the band's colors in this song: Redhead Senorita, One White Eye, and Black Rum.

"It's funny how much that ended up relating to Trump," he said. "We started selling T-shirts that said 'Icky Trump,' and they became our best-selling T-shirt ever. The song became completely relevant at that moment, even though it was written in another time period. But there's always some ridiculous notion of immigration in America, and yet the whole place is built on immigrants."