The White Stripes

Jack White is one half the American alternative rock band, The White Stripes.

Jack White (born John Anthony Gillis) first played as a professional musician in the early 1990s, as a drummer for the Detroit cowpunk band Goober & The Peas. This led to work with various other bands, such as the garage punk band The Go (on their 1999 album Whatcha Doin’), for whom White played lead guitar, and Two-Star Tabernacle. Also, neighbor Brian Muldoon (later of The Muldoons) played drums with Jack White – still known then as Jack Gillis – and the duo informally called themselves Two Part Resin. Their post-breakup 7-inch single Makers of High Grade Suites, released in 2000 on Sympathy for the Record Industry, is credited to The Upholsterers.

Gillis married local bartender Megan Martha White on September 21, 1996. In unorthodox fashion, he took Meg White’s surname. While the newly-christened Jack White continued to play in multiple bands, Meg White first began to learn to play the drums in 1997. In Jack White’s words, “When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing. There was something in it that opened me up”. The duo then became a band, calling themselves The White Stripes. They first performed publicly on July 14, 1997 at the Gold Dollar in Detroit.

Alicia Keys, is an American R&B/soul singer-songwriter, pianist, cellist, and actress.

Keys was born in a Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, in New York City, New York, the daughter and only child of Teresa “Terri” Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a flight attendant. Keys’ mother is of Irish-Italian descent, and her father is Jamaican. Keys describes herself as comfortable with her biracial heritage: “I grew up in New York and, thank God, I never had to go through that in regards to, ‘You’re not black enough, you’re not white enough,’ the whole kind of white/black-mixture thing. I never had to go through that. I went through prejudices and all, surely. But I never had to battle with those two parts of me.”

Keys’ parents separated during her early childhood, and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. In 1985, Keys and a group of other girls played the parts of Rudy Huxtable‘s sleepover guests in an episode of The Cosby Show called “Slumber Party”. She began playing the piano when she was seven, learning classical music by composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, and her favorite, Chopin. Keys almost chose Wilde as her stage name at age sixteen until her manager suggested the name Keys after a dream he had. Keys felt that name represented her both as a performer and person.

Keys graduated from the Professional Performing Arts School, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, as valedictorian at the age of sixteen in only three years. Although accepted to Columbia University, she dropped out four weeks later to pursue her musical career. Keys signed a demo deal with Jermaine Dupri and his So So Def label, then distributed by Columbia Records. She co-wrote and recorded a song entitled “Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)”, which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1997 blockbuster, Men in Black. The song was Keys’ first professional recording; however, it was never released as a single and her record contract with Columbia Records ended quickly. Keys later met Clive Davis, who signed her to Arista Records, which has since disbanded. Following Davis to his newly formed J Records label, she recorded the songs “Rock wit U” and “Rear View Mirror”, featured on the soundtracks to the films Shaft (2000) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001) respectively. Keys then released her debut album in 2001.

Another Way to Die

“Another Way to Die“, performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys, is the theme song to the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace. Written and produced by White, who also plays guitar and drums on the track, the song is the first duet in the Bond film series.

I know the player
With the slick
Trigger finger
For Her Majesty
Another one
With the
Golden tone voice
And then your fantasy
Another bill
From a killer
Turned a thrill
Into a tragedy

Chorus:
A door left open
A woman walking by
A drop in the water
A look in the eye
A phone on the table
A man on your side
Someone that you think
That you can trust
Is just
Another way to die

Another tricky
Little gun
Giving solace
To the one
That will never see
The sunshine
Another inch
Of your life
Sacrificed
For your brother
In the nick of time
Another dirty money
Heaven sent honey
Turning on a dime

Chorus:
A door left open
A woman walking by
A drop in the water
A look in the eye
A phone on the table
A man on your side
Someone that you think
That you can
trust is just
Another way to die

Wo-oh-oh-oh-oh-oah
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Another girl
With her finger
On the world singing?
Another gun
Thrown down
And surrendered
Took away your fear
Hey
Another man
That stands right
Behind you
Looking in the mirror

Chorus:
Oh, a door left open
A woman walking by
A drop in the water
A look in the eye
A phone on the table
A man on your side
Oh
Someone that you think
That you can trust
Is just
Another way to die

Tagged as: Alicia Keys, Jack White, The White Stripes

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