All language subtitles for It.Might.Get.Loud.2008.LIMITED.DOCU.BDRip.XviD-AMIABLE-English

Man, you know, who says
you need to buy a guitar?

It's like a piece of sculpture.

Wonderful span of wood varnish.

The whole aroma of it.
Like a woman, you know?

You can caress it like a woman.

Every element,
the wood, the finish,

and all the different aspects
are there in the sound.

Electric conveys,
like, amplification, energy.

It's all part
and parcel of who I am,

is playing the electric
guitar and bonding with it.

It's gonna be very interesting.

It's gonna be very interesting

because both are really, really
strong character guitarists.

Both White Stripes and Zeppelin

were able to do something that
was their own, was unique,

and had never been done before.

When the three of us get
together, what's gonna happen?

Probably a fistfight.

There's a lot of
soul in this guitar.

When Jack plays it,
it just goes wild.

This is Edge's main...
His main enchilada.

This is the brain
of the system.

It's going to be interesting to
see him layering his effects.

He's known to be
a sort of sonic architect.

I plan to trick
both of these guys.

That's basically
what I'm gonna do.

Trick them into teaching
me all their tricks.

We're going there
to have a chat.

But it just so happens
that the instruments

are sort of there
as well, so who knows?

What's this, Edge?

It's a little...
It's a form of yoga.

It's, uh...

It actually was
devised in Wales.

It's called Daboke.

Are you... What's the
BlackBerry to do with it?

It's just a little
adaptation I've made

just to make
better use of time.

Does Sting do this?

He doesn't do Daboke, he does
some other kind of yoga.

I'm very interested
in what hardware can do

to an electric guitar sound.

I love effects units.

They've always
pushed music forward.

When he pushes a button...

Let's say that button addresses
that unit, you know?

This button
addresses that unit.

And it's very rarely

that he will use the same sound
ever again in 20, 23 songs.

The guitars are set per song

with their output levels.

They're dedicated for that song
and that guitar level is...

He sets his effects to receive

that guitar level
in a particular way.

I drive everyone crazy.

I drive myself totally crazy,
trying to get the sound

that I can hear in my head
to come out of the speakers.

It's my voice,
that is my voice,

what's coming out
of the speaker.

That'd be wicked.

Take out the TC.

Technology is a big destroyer
of emotion and truth.

Opportunity doesn't do
anything for creativity.

Yeah, it makes it easier,
and you can get home sooner,

but it doesn't make you
a more creative person.

♪ And I don't worry

♪ Because I'm sitting
on top of the world!

That's the disease you have to
fight in any creative field.

Ease of use.

♪ Worked all the summer
Worked all the fall

♪ And I had to take
Christmas in my overalls

♪ 'Cause now she's gone
And I don't worry

All right, sing it.

♪ Because I'm sitting
on top of the world!

Yeah, that's it.

By the time I'm getting
into teenage years,

like, late '80s
and things like that,

I don't remember that many
rock 'n' roll bands

being around
that were that popular.

Things were changing
so much in music.

The technology was
taking over so much.

Technology was heavily
distracting everybody.

I mean, people
started spending weeks

trying to get
the perfect snare drum

and gated reverb sound.

♪ Because I'm sittin'
on top of the world! ♪

That's right.
That's right.

So processed, it wasn't
real at all anymore.

Just go up top.

If you really want to get
girls to pay attention

kick that chair out like...

♪ Yeah, she's gone

♪ And I don't worry

♪ Because I'm sittin'

♪ On top of the world ♪

Because of the amplification
and the tactile quality of it,

you can hear the very, sort of,

characteristics of each player.

People have just tried to stretch the
limits, come up with new techniques.

There's always something new that other
people are bringing to the table

that is to be reckoned
with very seriously.

Dynamics,

light and shade,

whisper to the thunder,

sort of invite you in,
sort of intoxicating.

Well, the thing
that fascinates me about it,

and always has about the six strings,
no one has ever approached...

They all play in
a different way and,

you know, their personality
comes through.

During my time as a
songwriter and performer,

I've kind of watched and felt that
I was seeing the end of the guitar

as a kind of focus
for popular music.

And yet every time I think
it's kind of counted out,

it flares up somewhere else.

I keep guitars that are, you know...
The neck's a little bit bent,

and it's a little
bit out of tune,

and I want to
work and battle it

and conquer it
and make it express

whatever attitude
I have at that moment.

I want it to be a struggle.

I have no idea
what these are, but...

My early demos
were real sketches.

They weren't fully fleshed out.

That's interesting.
That ended up...

It's the music that tells us the
direction the song should go.

As writers,
we start with the feeling

and everything
follows from that.

These guitar parts ended up
in the final version,

so this could be
discovering, you know,

those particular voicings of
the chords and what have you.

Four, five, six.

Four, five, six.

Bono's actually
calling out the timing.

That's funny.

Four, five, six.

'Cause the first section's in
a different time signature,

so it was a little bit of a head
trip to go between the two.

One, two, three,
four, five, six. One...

But you can count
it in different ways.

...six. One, two,
three, four, five, six.

One, two, three,
four, five, six.

One, two, three,
four, five, six.

Or you can go, one, two,
three, one, two, three.

It's like a waltz beat.

One, two, three,
one, two, three,

one, two, three,
one, two, three.

When you start to
treat the sound,

you start to invoke locations.

As I'm working, I'm often
thinking about, "Where is this?"

Where is this location?

Wow, there was a whole science block
there when I was living here.

That's amazing.

We played on a kind of
flat area over there with,

I wouldn't say
a paying audience...

We all got up here.

Larry was back here obviously

and I think I was on this side.

You were there?

Yeah, I was this side, yeah.

Actually, and have
been ever since.

This was where we
used to rehearse.

Now, this is really the very,
very beginning for us, you know.

So, this was Mr. McKenzie's room,
and he was very nice to us.

So, rehearsal was 10 minutes of
clearing away desks and chairs,

and then an hour of

seeing if we could
get anything together.

None of us could play
at this point, really.

For a while, we would come and we
would try and go through songs,

and it was really bad.
Like, really, really bad.

♪ I will walk in the wild wind

♪ I love to stare
I love to watch myself grow

♪ Someday, maybe tomorrow

♪ New direction, hello

♪ Well, I know, know, know

♪ Well, I know, know, know

♪ I know, know, know ♪

The thrill was just being able to
do it even if you did it badly.

Hello.

We're always worried
about being satisfied.

When you become satisfied, it's
sort of like you just die.

My name is Jack White, and this is my
big sister, Meg White, on the drums.

Thank you for letting us into your home.
We really appreciate it.

♪ Well, hey,
little apple blossom

♪ What seems to be the problem?

What can I do with three strings
on a guitar instead of six?

♪ They don't
really care for you

It takes me
three steps to get over

to play the organ in the middle of this song.
Put it four steps away,

then I'll have to run faster and I'll
push myself harder to get to it.

♪ Yes, and I will come
and rescue you ♪

♪ One, two, three, four
Take the elevator

♪ At the Hotel Yorba I'll
be glad to see you later

♪ All they got
inside is vacancy

♪ Yes, ma'am ♪

Meg and I don't even talk about
what the first song's gonna be.

We just go out and play.

Think of something fast, hurry
up and think of something,

because these guys want a show.

People know
when something's fake

and they know when something's
rehashed and rehearsed.

They know when you're telling
the same joke between songs

that you told in
Poughkeepsie last night.

They can smell it.

♪ Well, it's one, two, three,
four Take the elevator

♪ At the Hotel Yorba I'll
be glad to see you later

♪ All they got
inside is vacancy

♪ Yes, ma'am

I play really old guitars,
plastic guitars.

♪ It might sound silly
Yeah, for me to think...

If you want it easy you
buy a brand-new Les Paul

or a brand-new
Stratocaster.

♪ Let's get married In a big
cathedral by a priest... ♪

And this is my main
guitar that I played live

for my 10 years
in the White Stripes.

It's a hollow piece of plastic.

And you got this at Montgomery
Ward's department store.

Sears sold Silvertones and
Montgomery Ward sold Airlines.

I want to show you, Jack, what the...
If you just take this and...

Yeah, that's it.
Pick a fight with it.

That's what you gotta do. Pick a
fight with it and win the fight.

He's learning.

I'd like to introduce
Led Zeppelin to you.

On bass guitar, John Paul Jones.
This is John Paul Jones.

On drums, John Bonham.

Lead guitar, Jimmy Page.

And myself, Robert Plant.

We were so comfortable
playing with each other

that we could take it
in any direction.

The four members of the band had
taken on this sort of fifth element.

Passion, honesty
and competence.

Absolute musical heaven.

♪ How many more times

♪ Treat me the way
that you wanna do?

♪ How many more times

♪ Treat me the way
that you wanna do? ♪

Wow.

Boy, oh, boy, this brings
back some memories.

Yeah, this is... Well, come
straight into the entrance hall

and this is the hall
where the drums were set up

and where Levee Breaks
was recorded.

We had been recording
in this room here.

Bonzo had ordered
a new drum kit.

His tech, you know, his road
manager, had set it up in the hall.

And when Bonzo came out, he
started playing it in this thing,

and it was this huge expanse.

You're getting the drums
reflecting off of the walls,

you know, this wonderful
ambience to the drums.

Yeah, you can hear the
reflective surfaces.

You know, it's really
live and ambient.

We had a recording truck
parked on the outside here.

And you'd be running the
wires from their cables

with the mic leads, running
them into the house.

The mics were put up here
over the banisters here.

In those days, the drummer
would be in a little booth

so the drums were just
totally, you know, crushed.

This was quite radical.

After this you heard of
other, you know, drummers

and bands looking for lift
shafts and things to record in,

to get the height, you see.

We'd done three albums that
were recorded in the studio.

And this was another approach.

♪ The Queen of Light
took her bow

♪ And then she turned to go

As a kid, what was
going on in the music

was as important to me as what was
going on vocally and lyrically,

and it always was.

♪ Sing to the morning light

♪ The Dark Lord rides
in force tonight

♪ And time will tell us all ♪

Just word of mouth
and grapevines.

Isolation.

We moved house and the guitar
was there, left behind.

It was one of these, sort of,

weird interventions of the
guitar into our family.

It was just like a sort of
ornament left behind at the house.

♪ Gamblin' man, man, man,
Gamblin' man

♪ I'm a gamblin' man, man,
man I'm a gamblin' man

♪ I'm a gamblin' man

For anyone who could play
guitars, they all played skiffle.

That was the sort of community
project at the time.

Played on massive guitars
and washboards.

Local cuisine.

Very, very English.
Pre-rock this is.

♪ I'm a gamblin' man, man,
man I'm a gamblin' man ♪

We all weaned on that music.

It was like a sort of rock 'n'
roll breastfeeding of it.

I went to school one day
after hearing this stuff

and seeing Lonnie Donegan
on the television.

This guy actually had a guitar

and he was playing
Rock Island Line.

It was like, "Wow."

And I said, "I've got
one of those at home."

And he said, "Bring it along and
I'll show you how to tune it."

Well, that was more accessible
to be able to start to play.

Right, you could put a band
together pretty easily.

I mean, you could get to know one
chord and just strum it all day

and be having
a great time, you know.

♪ Well, Mama don't allow
no skiffle down in here

♪ Oh, no, she don't

♪ Mama don't allow
no skiffle down in here

♪ Well, we don't care
what Mama don't allow

♪ Gonna play that
skiffle any old how

♪ Mama don't allow
no skiffle down in here

We were a little local band
and we were playing around

school dances, and not
even the slightest,

mildest consideration that
that would go into something.

There wasn't this driving thing,
that the minute you hit your teens,

you gotta be famous.

What are your two
names? Yours is?

- James Page and...
- David Houston.

And you're just learning
to play the guitar?

- Yes, from a teacher.
- From a teacher.

Do you play anything
except skiffle?

Yes, Spanish and dance.

Do you? What are you gonna
do when you leave school?

Take up skiffle?

No, I want to do,
well, biological research.

Dublin in the mid-'70s was really
economically very challenged.

The economy was in the toilet.

We just didn't believe
that anything could change.

There has to be more than this.

This is not the only thing
that is on offer here.

You want to figure out how
you want to play guitar,

what your niche will be.

You just start digging deeper.

When you're digging deeper
into rock 'n' roll,

well, you're on a freight train
headed straight for the blues.

♪ Well, then, come to your
house and he won't stay long

♪ You look in the bed,
you'll find your mother gone

♪ Death don't have
no mercy in this land ♪

1930s, really scary
version of the blues.

If you go back and listen
to some of these songs,

I mean, you can't really believe
that they were even recorded to wax.

Robert Johnson.
Dark Was the Night.

Blind Willie Johnson.

"I asked her for water,
she gave me gasoline."

Minor key,
anti the establishment.

Questioning themselves.

Painful.

There's a tension in that
music that you can feel.

It just feels like there's
this place where, you know,

my soul rests and those
guys were expressing it.

In the Bible,
God cursed the ground,

so that the man will always be...
Will have to work hard.

Whether you're a farmer,
or a carpenter,

or a guitar player,
or whatever it is,

you have to fight
these man-made materials.

Fifteen-minute
guitar solos,

15-minute organ solos
or the drum solos.

There was a huge element
of self-indulgence.

Professional rock musicians who
looked down upon their fans.

Those old colors were dead,
and we wanted none of it.

♪ The bigger the cushion,
the sweeter the pushin'

♪ That's what I said... ♪

Spinal Tap, that's a
movie that I watched.

I didn't laugh, I wept. It
was so close to the truth.

Music really was
searching at that moment.

I'd listen to anything with a guitar
on it when I was a kid, you know...

Yeah.

...that was
being played,

and all those different
approaches and the echoes,

but the first time I heard
the Rumble, it was like...

That was something that had so
much profound attitude to it.

Yeah, it really does.

It really does.

Now he's starting to increase
a vibrato on his amplifier.

You hear...

And it gets more intense.

Most of my day was spent
going through these records,

listening to sounds,

or playing guitar
with the sounds.

I was pulled in
through those speakers.

This wonderful guitar playing.

Got to get to grips with that.

Just two people, bass.

Go home and see
if you can play it.

All these old friends that I
used to visit on a daily,

almost hourly,
almost a per-minute basis.

Okay. Might get loud
for a second.

As kids, we were so experimental
with whatever was around.

Taking stuff apart,

we were always tinkering,
always messing around.

We built a guitar when my
brother was 16. I was 14.

Literally hand-wound the
magnets to make the pickups.

Every little component.

Got wood from Barry
O'Connell's parents' place.

Hand-carved the neck,
hand-carved the body,

sawed the grooves,
put the fret wire in,

every aspect,
and put it together.

I mean, it wasn't the best
guitar that's ever been made,

but it functioned.

Never wanted
to play guitar, ever.

Everyone plays guitar.

What's the point?

I'm the youngest of 10 kids, and
there was just stuff around.

A microscope, a power tool.

When you're in
a family of 10 kids,

I mean, it's just a given. You're
gonna be sharing all day long.

Hand-me-down clothes,
hand-me-down toys.

Different interests, and everyone's
in and out all the time.

Some people
are walking to work,

some people are taking the bus.

Competition, fighting for food.

You push each other over. You
muscle your way into situations.

My brothers, a bunch of
them were musicians,

bass, keyboards, played guitar.

I got really into drumming,
playing along with the records.

Those rhythms
got into me early.

100% only caring
about music and rhythm.

I had a bedroom that was about
seven by seven feet, really small.

There was so much
junk I had collected.

I had two drum sets in there,

a guitar amplifier and a
reel-to-reel and no bed.

I took the bed out.

I slept on a piece of foam
on an angle by the door.

The thing that we started
out with is a clear idea

of what we did not
want to sound like.

Time to bop with the best in rock and
pop on this week's Top of the Pops!

Top of the Pops was this
longstanding pop TV show.

Most of it was pretty anemic.

If one out of the 10 items on the
show was cool, you were lucky.

That was the only live music
that we could get to see.

Making their debut on this
week's Top of the Pops,

here's The Jam and
an effervescent new 45.

One, two, three, four!

♪ Anything that you wanna do
Anyplace that you wanna go

♪ Don't need permission for
everything that you want ♪

It was like somebody just lit
the touch paper on this bomb.

So unexpected. I'd never
seen anything like it.

And a hope for a new beginning.

It was like a switch went on.

If we believed fully
in what we were about,

that actually was far more important
than how well you could play.

Our limitations as musicians

were ultimately
not gonna be a problem.

I was like,
"I can do that."

Total commitment,

getting across
what you wanted to say

in as straightforward a way
as possible.

I started inventing chords
to get that sound,

that kind of ringing sound.

Most people play E like this.

Full of a sort of
rich, complex tone,

which is a combination of all the
major elements of the chord.

I always wanted to simplify
it and make it more pure,

and so I found ways
of playing those chords

where I'd eliminate
certain notes.

So there's a more clear sound.

You probably hear it more...
As opposed to...

Really paring it down
to the absolute bare minimum.

When it's so simple, you
can turn it up really loud

and it's got more aggression.

Is it right to the C?

No, actually,
what I meant is...

It can't be.

Yeah.

And then up to the hook.

- Right.
- Are you sure about that C?

- Okay.
- That sounds good, doesn't it?

Sounds great, guys.
Roaring, yeah.

Punk-rock nihilism.

There's a bit of the
punk rock in this man.

I think there's some
punk left in there.

♪ Ya-hee! Icky thump
Who'da thunk?

♪ Sitting drunk
on a wagon to Mexico

♪ Ah, well, what a chump
Well, my head got a bump

♪ When I hit it on the radio ♪

Distortion, anger,

the punk ideal.

Guys or someone
maybe who got picked on,

like a lot of us did,
in high school.

This is our chance to, you
know, push you down now.

Southwest Detroit,
a tough town.

It puts up with
a lot and keeps going.

There was very few white
families left in the '80s.

My family
had a stiff upper lip.

Well, we're not leaving. We're not
running away like everybody else.

I lived in an all-Mexican neighborhood.
Mexican Town, it's called.

It was uncool to play guitar.

To play an instrument was

the most embarrassing thing
you could probably make up.

But hip hop and house music, that's
what everyone wanted to hear.

DJs and rappers.

It was very uncool to
actually play an instrument.

There was no record store,
no guitar shop.

Nobody liked rock 'n' roll
or blues music.

♪ Oh, shucks, hush your mouth

♪ Baby, you knockin' me out

♪ I said, "Shucks,
hush your mouth"

♪ Oh, baby,
you're knockin' me out ♪

By the time I'm 15,

I'm playing more and I'm pretty
reasonably accomplished.

Pop music was rubbish, so we
weren't gonna be playing that.

Playing blues music,
music of the Chess catalog,

not going with the flow.

Planning winter gigs,
coming out hot,

getting in the back of the van.

There's not proper heating
in the van.

I thought, "This is
getting really tiresome."

Sleeping on the equipment
in the back of the van,

driving to the next gig.

Getting ill,
heavy bouts of influenza.

I just thought, it's like beating
your head against a wall here.

And I figured that it was...

Best thing to do at that
point was actually retire.

So I went to art college.

Just as much
as I wanted to play guitar,

I also wanted to be an artist.

It had always
been something in me.

I wanted to know the techniques
of oil painting, life drawing,

graphic design, sculpture

and the techniques
used by the old masters.

You know, I apprenticed out to a
lot of people when I was younger.

I was an apprentice in an upholstery
shop when I was a teenager.

Brian Muldoon was the master
of the upholstery shop

and he was the one teaching
me, and he played drums.

Well, I guess
I'll play guitar then.

So when we were
done with our workday

we'd move the couches over, and
set up and play in the shop.

Surf and rockabilly, Dick Dale,

and trying to
absorb everything.

He'd pick me up from school.

I'd start tearing down
the furniture,

ripping off fabric and cotton
off of old chairs,

gluing fabric to foam
on weird curves,

tearing off
all of the old fabric.

You can imagine all the stuff
that's inside of a couch.

M&M'S, cereal,
and babies' toys.

Oh, here's how
you sew a welt cord,

or here's how you sew a fly
strip on the back of a decking.

He exposed me to punk music.

The Velvet Underground,
The Cramps.

Really took me under his wing to be an
employee and to play music together.

And then I started writing songs.
We kind of became a band.

We got to put out a record and
we called it The Upholsterers.

So, this song is
Froggy Went a-Courting,

you know, the folk song,
Froggy Went a-Courting.

Mmm-hmm.

But I'd never heard it
like this before though.

I was really into the
drummer first off, I...

♪ Frog went a-courtin'
and he did ride, uh-huh

Oh, yeah.

♪ Frog went a-courtin'
and he did ride, uh-huh

And this right here,
it blew my mind here.

♪ Frog went a-courtin'
and he did ride

♪ With a sword and a pistol
by his side, uh-huh ♪

♪ Well, I caught a crazy lover

♪ Love her, yes, I do ♪

The Flat Duo Jets, two-piece
band from North Carolina.

Guitar, drums and vocals,
just like me and Meg.

I went and saw him play
and I was blown away.

There was nothing on stage.
There was nothing there.

He was using a little 10-watt
amp and Silvertone guitar.

Headed in, what I would have thought
at the time, backwards direction.

I had to reassess what
backwards meant in my mind.

That opened up a whole new
inspiration for me about the guitar.

I started to leave the
drums alone a little bit.

The first guitar I ever bought.

This was, you know,
brand-new when I bought it.

It's just been
with me ever since.

And when we recorded our first
album with Steve Lillywhite,

we were in the studio in Dublin
and we did the backing tracks.

And he said, "You know,
let's do some overdubs

- "with a different guitar."
- Mmm-hmm.

I said, "What do you mean?

"We only have one guitar.

"This is the only guitar
we own in the band."

I was 17, I think,
the summer of '78.

And my family actually
were in New York.

It was like
walking into a movie for me.

I mean, I remember, not only did they
speak like they did in the movies,

but the cars looked like
they did in the movies.

That's actually
how people spoke.

That's actually what
the place looked like.

It's a burden when you
have a truck or a van,

because everybody you know wants you to
move their stuff for them, you know.

So every time
you get a phone call,

you're like, "Yeah, I'll come help
you move your stove or your safe."

I helped my brother
move a refrigerator.

Him and his wife started managing a St.
Vincent de Paul store.

It's like a Salvation Army
kind of store in Detroit.

So I helped him move
a refrigerator there.

The sunburst.
Tobacco sunburst.

My first electric.
Just tremendous.

Just couldn't believe it
when I actually got it home,

and there it was in the house.

Fantastic.

This was the one. This was
the one that I was after.

I went around
to the stores on the street

and found Stuyvesant Guitars.

Guitars everywhere,
people everywhere.

This instrument was just
there, calling out to me.

This Explorer.

I was really starting
to go on my way then.

My technique
started to improve.

It became
like a total addiction,

to the point where actually I was
now starting to take it to school.

And I'd be practicing
during the recess breaks.

And then it got to the point where
the guitar was confiscated.

They thought it was going to be
counterculture or something.

It wasn't doing
any harm to anybody.

Not then, it wasn't.

So, when I helped him move
the refrigerator, he said,

"Well, how about taking
this guitar for payment?

"Thanks for helping us,"
you know.

And I loved it so much
I couldn't believe it.

I was like, "Whoa, man,
that was worth it."

I plugged it into an amp in
the room and just could tell.

This was the kind of guitar
that had possibilities.

There were songs
in this guitar.

Twenty minutes in this store just
defined the sound of the band.

This better work out.

♪ You gotta go, go, go, go

♪ Goodbye, glad to see
you go, go, go, go

♪ Goodbye, glad to see
you go, go, go, go

♪ Goodbye, goodbye ♪

♪ Find yourself a girl,
and settle down

♪ Live a simple life
in a quiet town

♪ Steady, as she goes

I had ideas about modifying or
kind of designing my own guitar.

I liked the body shape
of this one.

I was trying to customize one of these
Gretsch guitars for The Raconteurs.

♪ Your friends have shown a
kink in the single life ♪

When people take a guitar that's
known for a certain sound

and throw it into
a whole different context,

something interesting happens.

Knowing that there was a
threshold, to volume,

I wanted to get
more sustain out of things.

I bumped into this chap,
Roger Mayer,

and all he told people was
he worked at the Admiralty.

Did I have any ideas?

I had this record
at home of a guitar

that had a lot
of sustain on it.

And I got him to come around
and have a listen to it.

I said,
"Can you get that?"

And he went away and came back
with this phenomenal thing.

A distortion pedal
which overloads the signal,

overdrive the sound and
make it sound pretty rude.

This is what
I'm actually playing.

That's it. The rest is the foot
pedal, the effects, the whole thing.

You know, so if you're on
an acoustic, trying to say,

"Here's my new riff. It's a
really cool riff. Listen."

Oh, my Lord.

Wow.

That's impressive.
That's great.

It was a single cutaway, and
I had this brilliant luthier

in Seattle, Randy Parsons.

And he made it
a double cutaway for me.

And then I said, "Well,
listen, I have an idea.

"Can you just... Can
you put a silver...

"A Green Bullet harmonica
mic on the guitar,

"so I can just take it out,
and right there?"

I got this echo unit and I
brought it back to rehearsal,

and just got
totally into playing,

but listening to
the return echo

filling in notes
that I'm not playing,

like two guitar players
rather than one.

The exact same thing, but it's
just a little bit off to one side.

I could see ways to use it
that had never been used.

Suddenly everything changed.

So, Jimmy, what...

You know, those early songs that
you played on in the studio,

- what did you actually play on?
- Yeah.

I mean,
that I would have heard,

like, there's all
these legends about...

Well, sometimes you
could hear what I did,

and other times, you
couldn't hear what I did.

But, I mean,
I was on Goldfinger.

That was fantastic.

Yeah. She did one take and
collapsed at the end of it.

But, you know, it was huge, huge big
orchestra in the EMI number one,

which was a massive,
great studio, you know.

They did a lot of
film stuff in there.

And, like, The Kinks stuff?

I did some Kinks stuff.

- Really?
- Yeah. I didn't...

I mean, you know, it all got out of hand,
you know, about what I had done

and what I hadn't done.

Really, it became, like,
the stuff of legend.

You know, before you knew what
it was, you'd done everything.

I was filling in,
in an interval band

at a club called
The Marquee Club,

playing on Thursday evening.

And somebody asked me, said, "Would
you like to play on the record?"

The record just bubbled in on
the lower end of the Top 20.

Then it moved so quickly.

The invitations to do more records
were so frequent after that.

An apprenticeship, going
into recording studios.

"Can you put
a riff to this?"

A song with all its
parts, the verses,

the choruses,
the middle eights.

Feel free to add
light detail on it.

The musical notation, you needed
to be right on top of it.

I could put on all
these different hats.

Film music or a jingle. "Well
done, Jimmy, that's great."

♪ Don't you mind people
grinnin' in your face

♪ Don't mind people
grinnin' in your face

♪ You just bear this in mind

♪ A true friend is hard to find

♪ Don't you mind people
grinnin' in your face

By the time I was about 18,
somebody played me Son House.

That was it for me.

♪ Yes, don't care
how you trying to live

♪ They'll talk about you still

This spoke to me
in 1,000 different ways.

I didn't know that
you could do that.

Just singing and clapping.

And it meant everything. It meant
everything about rock 'n' roll,

everything about expression
and creativity and art.

One man against
the world in one song.

♪ Just bear, ooh, this in mind

♪ A true friend is hard to find

♪ Don't you mind people
grinnin' in your face ♪

That's my favorite song.
Still is.

It became my favorite song
the first time I heard it

and it still is.

I heard
everything disappearing.

It didn't matter that
he was clapping off time.

It didn't matter that there was
no instruments being played.

All that mattered was the
attitude of the song.

Jumping off into the unknown.

Hope and have faith
that the next chord

or the next few notes
will come to you.

On occasions, you get nothing

and you come out feeling
like a complete idiot

and that you
don't know anything,

and you can't play guitar
and you can't write songs.

There's this little house
on the coast

of an area outside Dublin,
called Howth.

We decided that this is
where we would rehearse,

leading up to the recording
of the War album.

There have been
bombs here before,

but nothing of the scale
of yesterday's.

And as the full implications of
the number of dead and injured

and the destruction to
property became apparent,

it's also clear
that the South now

has a serious security
problem of its own.

Bombs going off
on a weekly basis.

So many lives destroyed.

Perverted, distorted idea
of freedom.

No life was sacred.

The crunch came. This one day
I went into this session.

I saw this big ream of paper
in front of me.

I started to get
very uncomfortable.

There was no run-through. They
counted you in, and off you went.

It literally was Muzak.

I'm not actually
creating anything.

I'm interpreting whatever it
is that's written down now.

And I'm even
doing Muzak sessions.

Tearing my hair out.

And I've got to get out of it.

And I thought about it
for a long time, for days.

There's this whole new world that's
just opened up in front of me

and I have to figure out,
"How do I get there?

"Am I not allowed
to get there?"

Bono put it to me, he said, "You
know, Edge, I think maybe if you

"would do a bit of time
on your own."

I remember feeling,
"Well, can I write?

"You know, am I a writer,
or am I just a guitarist?"

This is it.
This is the day of departure.

I wanted to get out there, and I had
a lot that I really wanted to do.

The minute that I was in The Yardbirds,
that bow was out immediately.

I shed this coat off of me, and
then I wanted to try everything

that was breaking rules. I wanted
to do things that sped up.

I wanted to do things that were like
playing a bow and hurting people's ears.

I started to look for
ways to get away with it

and not be some sort
of white-boy blues band.

And we went and played
open-mic night.

We were kind of in
our own little world.

Meg didn't really
want to do it.

I was pushing her.

If I put her behind the drums,

then, you know, maybe something
interesting will happen.

She just played like a little
caveman and a little child.

We started to form
everything around Meg.

We saw a bag of
peppermint candies.

I said, "Well, that should
be on your bass drum.

"We should paint that
on your bass drum."

By this time,
I had found a red guitar.

This red guitar and
the peppermint candy

dictated the aesthetic
of the band.

♪ What am I supposed to think?

♪ Drop a nickel in the sink ♪

White Stripes became the big
way to get away with it.

By having a brother-and-sister
band that was, you know...

Red, white and black
was the complete aesthetic.

And it was childish, and
we're presenting ourselves

in a real childish manner,
almost like cartoon characters.

And a lot of distractions
to keep people away

from what was really going on,

which was, we were just really
trying to play this, you know.

You know, still are, so...

♪ Dead leaves
and the dirty ground

♪ When I know you're not around

♪ Shiny tops and soda pops

♪ When I hear
your lips make a sound

♪ When I hear
your lips make a sound

♪ Thirty notes in the mailbox

♪ Will tell you
that I'm coming home

♪ Well, I think
I'm gonna stick around

♪ For a while
so you're not alone

♪ For a while
so you're not alone

I would just go to D with
it sort of in a blues way,

and I was just
singing a Son House lyric.

♪ Didn't feel so bad
till the sun went down

And then we go to D, then...

♪ Didn't have no one
to wrap my arms around

♪ Wrap my arms around ♪

Floating around
blues structures.

Did the press understand
what you were doing?

No, I don't think they did.

I didn't think they had a
clue what we were doing,

as each album changed in its
sort of concept and variety.

The reviews were terrible.

They didn't understand
what we were doing.

They gave the fourth album
a one-paragraph review.

Now, there's a lot
of material on that.

Black Dog, there's Levee Breaks,
there's Stairway to Heaven.

One paragraph.

They didn't have a clue
what was going on.

I just didn't even bother to
read music papers after that.

This car bomb has gone off.

This bar has been raked
with machine gun fire.

Total disregard for human life.

We're not buying into this.

I just remember
being in a rage.

When you go past
a managed forest,

you see a mass of tree trunks.

Then, at a certain point,
you look again,

and you realize they're
all in perfect rows.

Clarity.

Clarity of vision.

What you've been looking at from the
wrong angle and not seeing at all.

You labor.

You sweat to see

what you couldn't have seen
from that other perspective.

I just remember just scrambling
to try and put it down

before that moment
passes and fades.

And picking up the guitar and
that's what I came out with.

♪ Broken bottles
under children's feet

♪ Bodies strewn
across a dead-end street

♪ I won't heed the battle call

♪ Puts my back up, puts my
back up against the wall

♪ Sunday, bloody Sunday

♪ Sunday, bloody Sunday

♪ Sunday, bloody Sunday

♪ How long? How long
must we sing this song?

♪ How long?
How long?

♪ 'Cause tonight,
we can be as one

♪ Tonight

♪ Tonight, tonight

♪ Tonight, tonight ♪

You know, I come in here and
sometimes it's just not a great day,

but there's always gonna be
something if you just keep going.

If you don't have a struggle already
inside of you or around you,

you have to make one up.

These little things
during the day.

Extreme feelings.

Something that made you angry
or something that made you

upset or jealous.

♪ Spider got eight legs
and I got two

♪ This guitar got six strings

♪ But what about you?
Yeah, what do you got?

♪ What did you get
for free? ♪

You wrote the essence of Stairway
to Heaven before you got here.

- Yes, I had...
- What is your process

when you write a song?

I can't tell you
what the process is.

It changes from
one thing to another,

but it usually
comes just from...

For anybody who's writing or,

you know, whether they're writing
written word or music or whatever,

it just comes from the
creative spark, really.

It's all very spontaneous,

but, you see, the whole reason
for being here was for that.

The double neck came as
a result of Stairway.

Stairway was done
on the acoustic,

with all these electric guitar
string parts on it that build it up.

I thought to myself, "How am I
going to do this on stage?"

So, it became a necessity relative
to the song, if you like.

'Cause then you could
do the six-string part,

the acoustic part, electric, of
course, but the solo on this,

- and do the rest of it on the 12.
- Right. Yeah.

♪ There's a lady who's sure

♪ All that glitters is gold

♪ And she's buying
a stairway to heaven

Being a studio musician,
you certainly don't speed up.

One of the things that I really
wanted to do straightaway was

crescendo and speed.

♪ And it makes me wonder

I liked this idea of movement.

♪ If there's a bustle
in your hedgerow

♪ Don't be alarmed now

♪ It's just a spring clean
for the May Queen ♪

Pulse, push.

Rise and fall in its
intensity, in its power.

Light and shade.

Wouldn't I want to
be employing that?

That was something that was
gonna keep increasing,

building, accelerating, from
the beginning to the very end,

like an orgasm.

Every night that we went
on stage, it was living.

Totally living at every point.

The spark had become the flame

and the flame was
burning really bright.

♪ What do you got
that I ain't got?

♪ That's what I wanna know

♪ Can I get a piece of it?

♪ A piece before you go?
Well, give it up, girl

♪ Yeah, shove it
right down my throat

♪ Before I leave I got one
last thing to say to you

♪ Have you seen my coat? ♪

That's it.

♪ Spent my days
with a woman unkind

♪ Smoked my stuff
and drank all my wine

♪ Made up my mind
to make a new start

♪ Going to California with
an aching in my heart ♪

There's a total concentration

on music and creativity
and writing.

Pushing the boundaries.

Looking over the horizon.

Musicians that were absolutely
on top of their game.

Great!

Nice.

Nice. That's it.

You're supposed to
join the family.

You're supposed to
become part of it.

That family of storytellers.

When it goes down into that break bit.
It's, yeah... It's G. Yeah.

- D, C, C, G.
- Okay. Yeah.

G, B minor?

G, D, C, it's the...

Oh, right here.
I see. Yeah, okay.

The biggest thrill
is creating something

that has the power
to really connect with people.

That's why I took up the
guitar in the first place.

What's the note here for the vocal?
For me, if I do it lower.

♪ Take a load off, Annie

Oh, that.

♪ Take a load off, Annie ♪

I can do the high, but...

Afraid I can't hit it.

I can't sing.
I'm hopeless. Yeah.

Really high ones, isn't it?

Whether I took it on, or it
took me on, I don't know.

The jury's out on that.

But I don't care.

I just really, really
enjoyed it. That's it.

I just noticed,
I've been playing

the wrong second chord
in the verse.

Have you?

It's a B minor, actually,
not an E minor.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, that's better.

For me,
it was a much bigger world.

I had a voracious appetite
for everything. All of it.

Music keeps
progressing and moving on

and people come up with
new ideas and new tricks

and new ways to tell the same
story in a different way.

♪ I'm bringing back ghosts
that are no longer there

♪ I'm getting hard on myself

♪ Sitting in my easy chair

We're all doing the same thing,

attempting to share something
with another human being.

♪ Well, there's three people
in the mirror

♪ And I'm wondering which
one of them I should choose

♪ Well, I can't keep
from laughing

♪ Spitting out these 300 miles
per hour outpour blues ♪

In essence, we are
effectively the same band.

We're a little bit
more complex.

But we're really still the band

that's crowded into
the small little rooms,

trying to play with each other

and find those clues that
will take us somewhere new.

Now, exactly where this
note was I have no memory.

But this is where it was put.

I loved this whole idea of, you
know, getting a band together.

So I was definitely
gonna do something.

But if Larry had not put the message up,
I would have been in some other band.

I don't know. It
wouldn't have been U2.

God knows who it would have been.
And if, you know, would I

be doing what I am now?
Probably not.

I mean, I could
be doing anything.

I'd be, I don't know, working in
a bank somewhere or something.

The day
when you pick up a guitar

and there's nothing
coming through whatsoever.

There's no new pieces,
no new ideas.

And that's the sort of gift
that any creative person has.

There's always that point that
that might happen to you.

Or you're too old to be
able to pick the guitar up.

And we're just trying to keep that
day far, far away and out of sight.

♪ I pulled into Nazareth

♪ Was feelin'
about half past dead

♪ I just need someplace

♪ Where I can lay my head

♪ "Hey, mister, can you tell me

♪ "Where a man
might find a bed?"

♪ He just grinned
and shook my hand

♪ "No!" was all he said

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ Take a load for free

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ And

♪ And you put
the load right on me

This one's called Claudette. After
the actress Claudette Colbert.

My tattoo artist
did all this for me.

He's really good at
doing this on people,

so we figured he'd
be doing it with...

I bought him
a wood burning tool,

so he could burn her
face on the side of it.

I made the pick guard,
so it looks like a brunette.

♪ When I saw old Carmen and the
Devil walking side by side

♪ I said, "Hey, Carmen, come
on and let's go downtown"

♪ She said, "I gotta go now

♪ "Well, my friend, she
can stick around for you"

♪ Yeah, well,
take a load off, Annie

♪ Take a load for free

And you come out and bring your
amp out here all the time?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

It's my thing. You know, I like to get
out here in the elements and rock out.

Yeah, with the islands.

The islands I always
find very inspiring

for those long echo,
delayed sounds.

It's an actual theremin.

It hasn't got six strings,
but it's a lot of fun.

♪ Take a load for free

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ And, well, yeah you put
the load right on me

♪ Go down, Miss Moses,
there's nothing you can say

I notice you have a
picture of the Fab Four.

It's actually not so much
reverence for The Beatles.

It's a kind of haircut
reference for the crew.

♪ "What about young
Anna Lee?"

♪ He said, "Do me a favor, son

♪ "Won't you stay and
keep Anna Lee company?"

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ Take a load for free

We almost had an accident
with a suit and a cell phone.

He was probably right in the middle of
saying the words "totally organic."

♪ Crazy Chester followed me

♪ And he caught me in the fog

Look at that. Somebody's
put the lyrics

to Glad to See You Go
on their locker.

What a coincidence. Okay.

We used to play this song.

♪ "You know I'm a peaceful man"

♪ He said, "That's okay, boy

♪ "Won't you feed my
dog, now, when you can?"

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ Take a load for free

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ And

♪ And you put
the load right on me

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ Take a load for free

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ And

♪ And you put the load
right on me

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ Take a load for free

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ And

♪ And you put the load
right on me

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ Take a load for free

♪ Take a load off, Annie

♪ And

♪ And you put the load
right on me ♪