Meg White helped edit her ex-husband Jack’s speech ahead of The White Stripes‘ induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last weekend.
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Last weekend (November 8) saw the annual Rock Hall ceremony take place at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater, with inductees including OutKast, Soundgarden, Cyndi Lauper, Chubby Checker, Bad Company, Joe Cocker and Jack and Meg White.
Meg wasn’t present at the ceremony, as she has stuck to keeping out of the spotlight since The White Stripes broke up in 2011. Instead, Jack accepted the honour on behalf of her, and revealed during his speech that he had spoken to Meg “the other day” ahead of the ceremony, when she helped him edit his speech.
While on the podium, Jack shared: “I spoke with Meg White the other day, and she said that she’s very sorry she couldn’t make it here tonight, but she wanted me to tell you that she’s very grateful. And to all of the folks who supported her in all the years, it really means a lot to her. She also helped me write all this… I sent these things to her. She checked it for me for a lot of punctuation and corrections. She’s pretty good at that.”
Later on in his speech, he thanked her for their time together – both as a band and as romantic partners – and rounded off his speech by reading out a story about the band that he had wanted to send to Meg, who was hearing it for the first time along with the audience.
“I was gonna send this to Meg, but I didn’t get around to it, so I thought I’d read it to you all tonight,” White began. “One time, a girl climbed a tree, and in that tree was a boy — her brother, she thought. And the tree looked so glorious and beautiful, but it was just an oak tree.
“And these two so loved the world that they brought forth a parade float – one they built in their garage behind the oak tree with their own bare hands. And the boy looked at this giant peppermint on wheels and felt pride – pride that it was produced in the Motor City, just like in the big factories – but it was just in their garage. He looked at the girl — his sister, he thought – and, like the Little Rascals, they said, ‘Let’s put on a show.’
“And they paraded this float through the Cass Corridor,” the White Stripes frontman continued, “standing atop the peppermint pulled by white horses – or maybe it was a red Econoline van. Many of the blocks they travelled were empty, but some had people. And some of those people cheered, some laughed, and some even threw stones. And with their bare hands, the two started to clap and sing and make up songs.
“And some people kept watching and swaying and moving. And then one person even smiled. The boy and the girl looked at each other, and they also smiled, and they felt — they both felt – the sin of pride. But they kept on smiling. Smiling from a new freedom, knowing that they had shared and made another person feel something.
“And they thought the person smiling at them was a stranger, someone they didn’t even know. But it wasn’t just a stranger. It was God.”
Olivia Rodrigo, Feist, and Twenty One Pilots also performed at the ceremony to honour The White Stripes. Rodrigo and Feist took on an acoustic duet of ‘We’re Going To Be Friends’ from 2001’s ‘White Blood Cells’, which was the song the White Stripes played in their final performance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien back in 2009.
Twenty One Pilots then covered ‘Seven Nation Army’, the track Rodrigo dubbed the “most iconic song of all time” in a video that preceded White’s speech. Both wearing fringed face masks, Pilots bassist and singer Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun switched to keys mid-song, earning a standing ovation from Flea.
