The Union Forever

This song is a tribute to the Orson Welles classic film, "Citizen Kane." Almost every line is taken from the film - including the wonderful little song about Charles Foster Kane (C.F.K.) that is actually sung in the film too. It made me appreciate The White Stripes a little more, being that I'm a filmmaker and to see a movie be inspiration for a song is just blue jeans cool... PS - go rent the movie.

its even better live

Great, great music. The White Stripes are just amazing in every single way. Why did they have to break up?

It's all about Citizen Kane. The part about true love is sung by the band during Kane's party in the Everglades. The bit about oil wells and shipping and being everything you hate is spoken by Kane when he loses his empire. His second wife speaks the lines about "you gotta love me." The "There is a man..." part is taken verbatim from a song about Kane sung in the movie.

But "shure"? What the hell? There's no 'h' in 'sure.' Also, it's traction MAGNATES, not magnets.

This masterful song clearly refers to "Citizen Kane", directed by Orson Welles. As liarsclub said, this song is practically taken from the movie. If anyone who reads this has not seen the movie, go see it. It truly is the greatest movie of all time, and this band might become the greatest of all time.

The bit about "there's no true love" comes from the picnic scene in the movie, near Xanadu. The song in the middle of the song about Kane comes from Kane's celebratory party for his newly acquired newspaper staff. The union forever refers to the words the young Charles Foster Kane shouts as he plays in the snow with his sled (Rosebud) outside his mother's boarding house. The stuff about the oil and gold refers to the scene where Kane insults his guardian, Thatcher, who simply cannot understand him. Someone else here said it, but the thing about having to love him is said by his second wife, Susan Alexander in the same scene as the "there can't be love".

It's an amazing movie. This is an amazing band.

This song is so creepy and real. I haven't seen Citizen Kane. That's my last name, though, does that count for anything?

Just ignore the Christianity haters. I'm an atheist, but I don't care that someone mentioned Jesus - what solid literary or creative work doesn't have a Christ figure in it? And I don't care that Jack's religious, either; I don't see why people have such a beef with that. His choice. Plus, anyone who chooses Meursault's revolver as a source for a songmeanings name has to be messed up. That book is just fucked up, man.

Lyrics straight from CK, but I also interpret them as being about a failed marriage or relationship.

The Union Forever = being married forever. The girl promised it, but decided to get a divorce. It was untrue.

The lyric is "the traction magnates on the run" not "traction magnets".

"traction magnets" makes no sense in the context.

Citizen Fucking Kane. There is no true love. Except that fucking sled I vaguely remember from my childhood...

i've never seen citizen cane, so i just took this song as an attack at marriage. "you said the union forever....but that was untrue, girl" referring to matrimony and the whole 'until death do us part' thing. "it can't be love for there is no true love" would just be the perception of someone who had just been divorced unwillingly. The spoken word part "There is a man....I bet you five he's not alive if you don't know his name," seems to be used in a satirical way. In the movie, they say this in reference to Kane, but in the song, Jack seems to imply that there is no person that is as great as the man described, despite all the women who marry a man expecting him to be. "Well I'm sorry but I'm not interested.....real estate," could refer to Jack's life style of being a musician and how even though it may not be the most stable profession, it's still what he loves.

Of course, this is just how I perceive the song. It may very well be all about Citizen Kane :)