Blue Orchid

The inspired guitar riffs make us glad to find lyrics to justify the intense energy. Jack White shows that the rock strain continues to develop into the twenty-first century. We have not studied the band much yet, but are quite taken up whenever "Blue Orchid" or Seven Nation Army " come on the radio. We are very proud that the Whites come from Detroit, and join our Michigan Rock Hall of Fame.

Blue Orchid is about the corruption of innocence, probably in love, though the song has been read as being about molestation, and may carry this meaning as an undercurrent. Commentators, as on Songmeanings, note that a Russian child sex ring was named Blue Orchid. The reason that it seems the song must be about love is the line "Your lips taste sour / But you think its just me teasing you." "Your lips taste sour" does not fit a molestation so well as a broken love, though the lines How old are you now anyway" make the rock anger fit a molestation. "Turned it blue" would then be as in the blues, a love turned from innocence to sorrow by infidelity. We will try to read the song this way, and see if it remains coherent. "You got a reaction" would be like a response to the excuse that she was just trying to get some reaction from him, an aloof lover. "We all need to do something" and "How old are you now anyway" then fit with something like that she did some other guy while he was away. Is she so immature that she must have something for the appetites even at the cost of love? "You got a reaction" is then that she destroyed their love, his innocent love, turned it blue, and now he does not want her anymore. The reaction is "get behind me," "anyway" repeated from the question "How old are you now, anyway." This is of course what the Christians say when the devil is near, as in the anger of the lover toward both the perpetrators in infidelity. This suspicion will be confirmed by "Seven Nation Army."

From mmcdonald77.wordpress.com, Rock Commentaries