Not sure about the title. I mean, personally I remember having one of those dreadful rally jackets that Dave Lee Travis used to wear when I was a kid. The zipper was a bastard to use and the memory of it haunts me still. So it seems we don't all have problems with buttons.
Nonetheless, for all that, this is an intriguing single. Housed in a sleeve reminiscent of the graphics for Sinatra's "The Man With The Golden Arm" movie complete with a reference to Jack White's recent unfortunate finger operation, "The Hardest Button To Button" is no-nonsense, wired White Stripes, in four-square, stomping blues mode. Kicking in with what sounds like a rhino fart bassline, but is actually phased guitar and settling into another of those "Dead Leaves & The Dirty Ground"-type struts, it proffers lyrics (sample: "Now we're a family and we're alright now, we got money and a little place to fight now") which could well be a commentary on the media's fascination with Jack and Meg's own relationship, but as ever with the Whites, ambiguity is king.
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The single also features ver Stripes take of The Soledad Brothers' "St.Ides Of March" (live at a Berlin soundcheck), which swerves dangerously from coy and sweet to cocksure and swaggering within the blink of an eye and once again finds Meg White's ruthlessly basic drums (she makes Tony McCarroll sound like Neil Peart) sounding positively heroic.
Wrap it all up with a seamlessly cool video featuring Jack and Meg in perpetual motion up and down steps and on subway trains with more amp stacks and peppermint stripe drums than you could shake a haversack full of sticks at and you've got yet another essential White Stripes package. And there's no Kate Moss either. Hurrah!
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