Jack White: ‘I’m not going to put a painful thing out there for some idiot on the internet to stomp all over’

As a new book of his lyrics, poems and selected musings is published, the White Stripes’ singer, songwriter and general guitar hero reflects on poetry, politics and why writing a song is like reupholstering a chairOn the jacket of Jack White: Collected Lyrics & Selected Writing Volume 1, the  poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib writes: “I wish I read more people who talked about Jack White as a writer of lyrics.” He makes a good point. White is celebrated as a singer, guitarist, producer and generator of indelible riffs but not so much as a wordsmith. His new book, edited by official archivist Ben Blackwell, sets the record straight. Following 2023’s The White Stripes Complete Lyrics 1997-2007, it covers every song White has written outside that band, along with several poems, Instagram ruminations and scans from his notebooks.White, 50, thinks fast and talks fast. He’s sitting in the Nashville headquarters of Third Man, a record label, recording studio,