Over and Over and Over

Jack White arrives here in a state of controlled fury, and the track reflects that internal weather completely. Built on a guitar riff that coils and strikes with the relentlessness of something mechanical — a piston, a gear, a loop that cannot stop itself — the song drives forward with near-maniacal momentum, the drums locked in tight and the production deliberately abrasive, sharp-edged in the high frequencies and dense in the midrange. There is no relief valve built into the arrangement, no bridge that softens the tension or verse that permits breathing room; the song functions as one sustained pressure event from start to finish. White's vocal delivery matches the intensity of the instrumentation — clipped, urgent, at moments bordering on a shout, the voice of someone who has convinced himself that repetition itself becomes revelation, that saying the same thing enough times in the right tone of voice will eventually make it true. The lyrical content spirals around obsession and repetition itself, a kind of self-aware acknowledgment of the compulsive nature of certain thoughts and behaviors. This song does not belong in the background of anything. It belongs in the car when the highway is empty and you push the accelerator down without deciding to.