Yeah, I agree w/ mockingsmile [and the one before] that the tone of this song is condescending. However, this has to be put into historical perspective. The White Stripes are VERY retro. They don't just sound old, they actually create situations and characters from the past.
The attitude towards women until probably the 70s was very condescending, and the female ideal was what we would today consider diminutive and childlike. Look at shows like "I Love Lucy" from the 50s... In this show a forty year old woman acts like a little girl to get the attention of her husband, who has to look after her. Sixty years before was the Victorian era, where the feminine ideal was delicate, floral [if I can say that], and in need of male protection.
So, it seems creepy to us now that he sounds like he's talking about a "little" girl, who is delicate like an apple blossom, and who needs rescuing by him and his marrying her. More importantly perhaps, it seems creepy to us today that he is attracted almost exclusively to her need for him, with nothing to do with personality or anything aside from her lack of independence. You get a good sense of this by the way he keeps calling her little, her troubles are little and they go into a little pile, so he can fix them for her ('cause he's a man and that's easy for him)... He doesn't take her seriously, doesn't see her as an equal but rather soothes her "little" troubles like one would a baby. But fifty to a hundred years ago this frailty and need of a man was widely viewed as an appealing female trait.
This song has taken an old ideal and an older version of the male/female dynamic and presented it to a modern audience. It seems, based on the tone of the song, that he somewhat acknowledges the sinister association this situation would have nowadays with pedophilia and exploitative relationships. However, the singer's voice and tone generally stays true to character. This isn't really a commentary on the past, it seems, but simply a represenation of it. If we were in the past, of course, this would simply be a sweet love song... so it also makes sense to look at it that way if you imagine yourself in that world. So this could be nostalgia, or commentary, or more likely a subtle combination of both.
Yeah, I agree w/ mockingsmile [and the one before] that the tone of this song is condescending. However, this has to be put into historical perspective. The White Stripes are VERY retro. They don't just sound old, they actually create situations and characters from the past.
The attitude towards women until probably the 70s was very condescending, and the female ideal was what we would today consider diminutive and childlike. Look at shows like "I Love Lucy" from the 50s... In this show a forty year old woman acts like a little girl to get the attention of her husband, who has to look after her. Sixty years before was the Victorian era, where the feminine ideal was delicate, floral [if I can say that], and in need of male protection.
So, it seems creepy to us now that he sounds like he's talking about a "little" girl, who is delicate like an apple blossom, and who needs rescuing by him and his marrying her. More importantly perhaps, it seems creepy to us today that he is attracted almost exclusively to her need for him, with nothing to do with personality or anything aside from her lack of independence. You get a good sense of this by the way he keeps calling her little, her troubles are little and they go into a little pile, so he can fix them for her ('cause he's a man and that's easy for him)... He doesn't take her seriously, doesn't see her as an equal but rather soothes her "little" troubles like one would a baby. But fifty to a hundred years ago this frailty and need of a man was widely viewed as an appealing female trait.
This song has taken an old ideal and an older version of the male/female dynamic and presented it to a modern audience. It seems, based on the tone of the song, that he somewhat acknowledges the sinister association this situation would have nowadays with pedophilia and exploitative relationships. However, the singer's voice and tone generally stays true to character. This isn't really a commentary on the past, it seems, but simply a represenation of it. If we were in the past, of course, this would simply be a sweet love song... so it also makes sense to look at it that way if you imagine yourself in that world. So this could be nostalgia, or commentary, or more likely a subtle combination of both.