Reposted from @thelegendsofmusic The White Stripes playing “The Hardest Button to Button” Live at the Reading Festival in 2004 Jack White wrote this song about a young boy who is rejected or ignored by his family because he did something bad to his baby brother. Lyrically, this song is often seen as a statement on the inequality of attention in families that have more than one child, or about how a child is psychologically abused by his parents. During an FAQ, Jack had this to say 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.’” 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.” #Music #RockNRoll #TheWhiteStripes #JackWhite #MegWhite iiii]; )'