Little Acorns

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Revision as of 18:48, 18 September 2006

Little Acorns is a song by The White Stripes. It can be heard on their fourth album, Elephant.

Band Quotes

• Jack White : "My brother, who works at a radio commercial distribution place, had been bringing around tapes for me to record on. I was recording a piano melody and when I played it back it had this guy speaking on the other track. Totally accidental. I based a song around his story. He's actually a famous news anchorman in Detroit, Mort Crim. I thought he'd hate it. He loved it...For those of you not in the Detroit area, Mort Crim is the local newscaster on our NBC affiliate. He's about 170 years old and sits across from Carmen Harlan saying Detroit ain't so bad then tells us about the 5 year old girl that got caught in the middle of a gang related shoot out."
• Jack White : "His name is Mort Crim. He's an anchorman on the news in Detroit, the local news. And that was a complete accident that somebody had given me a bunch of reel-to-reel tapes to record demos over on a two track, and they're filled with radio ads and commercials and things. And I was recording on one track the piano part that you hear in the background at the beginning, and when I played it back on the other track, there was that story. It was perfectly in time. How you're hearing it on the album is just how I heard it when it first happened, this accident. I wrote the rest of the song based around that story because I love that story. These sort of morality tales - he has some radio show, he has these morality tales or whatever and it was great. So I recorded that, we recorded the song, I took it back to Detroit and I found him and went to his office, Mort Crim's office. I played it for him to get permission, to see if we could put it on the record, thinking he was gonna hate it. But he really liked it, so we were glad."

Facts

• Jack recorded a demo over a tape in which Detroit news anchorman Mort Crim tells a story that apparently inspired Jack to write the rest of the song.

Lyrics

Mort Crim :
     When problems overwhelm us and sadness smother us,
     Where do we find the will and the courage to continue?
     Well, the answer may come in the caring voice of a friend,
     A chance encounter with a book, or from a personal faith.
     For Janet, help came from her faith,
     But it also came from a squirrel.
     Shortly after her divorce, Janet lost her father,
     Then she lost her job. She had mounting money problems.
     But Janet not only survived,
     She worked her way out of despondency,
     And now she says life is good again. How could this happen?
     She told me that late one Autumn day, when she was at her lowest
     She watched a squirrel storing up nuts for the winter.
     One at a time he would take them to the nest, and she thought :
     "If that squirrel can take care of himself,
     With the harsh winter coming on, so can I.
     Once I broke my problems into small pieces, I was able to
     carry them...just like those acorns...one at a time."

Jack White :
     Take all your problems and rip 'em apart...oh oh oh oh oh
     Carry them off in a shopping cart...oh oh oh oh oh
     Another thing you should've know from the start...oh oh oh oh oh
     The problems at hand are lighter than at heart...oh oh oh oh oh
     Be like the squirrel, girl, be like the squirrel..oh oh oh oh oh
     Give it a whirl, girl, be like the squirrel...oh oh oh oh oh
     And another thing you have to know in this world..oh oh oh oh oh
     Cut up your hair, straighten your curls...
     Well, your problems hide in your curls.
     Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh