Jack White has always been eccentric. After all, this is the man who pulled the Biblical stunt of trying to pass off his (now ex-)wife and fellow band member as his sister for several years. White has always fought to maintain his unique artistic voice. His new album “Lazaretto” channels that independence and defiance of control into a wide-open, looser, sound. The result offers nuggets of insight into the modern condition.
His previous album, “Blunderbuss,” was a driving, aggressive affair. At each moment the music drove the listener forward, and the notes bore the weight of some unspoken purpose. It was an artistic expression of individuality against the pressures of the world he cannot escape. The album begins this struggle with the fury of relentless heavier songs. White adds further instrumental and stylistic complexity as the album winds down.
The album does lose some of the harsher edges, gently easing off the pedal and prefiguring the lowered intensity of White’s next album. A line from the penultimate and quieter song “On and On and On” provides an opportunity to consider White’s relationship with the world: “The people around me won’t let me/ Become what I need to, they want me the same.” In many ways “On and On and On” prefigures “Lazaretto.”
White considers the constancy of the cycle of nature compared with the constant need for choice in a world of social control: “The stones in the sky never worry/ They don’t have to hurry, they move in their own way/ But I have to choose what to do/ How to act, what to think, how to talk, what to say.” This turn to introspection is matched by the relaxed instrumentation, continuing the albums decrescendo.
The looser tone and musical variety of “Lazaretto” is the logical fulfillment of this trajectory within “Blunderbuss.” Instead of delivering a hard-hitting, focused follow-up, White chose to further expand his already eclectic style with 39 minutes of shifting country, rock, and blues.
White has slowed down the tempo a bit and is willing to just play, carrying the listener along from song to song instead of pushing them forward with a driving beat. It appears that White has learned his lesson from “the stones in the sky,” now “content to move in [his] own way.” White has by no means lost his edge, but even the most hard-driving songs are content to take their time. White loosens the reins and the musical result is free of the seriousness and restraint imposed by the determination of “Blunderbuss.” With the musical freedom comes the opportunity to explore deeper themes.
White’s song “Temporary Ground” ponders the unknowable element to human life against the homely background of the string music one might hear at a country dance. White draws a parallel between the uncertainty of natural life on a floating lilypad with the modern condition. “All the creatures have it hard now/ Nothing but god is left to know/ And while he left us all here hanging.” Only against the mature background of “Lazaretto” can White take stock of his true situation, and it is perilous. The contrast between the traditional music and the postmodern sentiments is jarring.
The song “Entitlement” includes the clearest cultural critique of the album, again against the background of one of White’s slower songs. Piano and guitar play a slow country tune while White demonstrates his disillusionment with a society that “takes like Caesar and nobody cares.” Caught in an older mentality, White laments that “I can’t bring myself to take without penance/ Or atonements or sweat from my brow.” Precisely in a time when so many focus on desert, White remarks that “we don’t deserve a single damn thing.”
Having looked to the “stones of the sky” and the lilies (of the pond, not the field), White realizes each man’s place within the created order. In his mind, the rest of society may be willing to conform and feel entitled, but Jack White will continue to satisfy his own standards.
White’s mature vision is by no means rosy. Yet White is content to be himself, to switch back and forth from intensity to contemplation. From the looser sound emerges not only a whirlwind of eclectic music but an expanded self-awareness that is at the heart of “Lazaretto.”