Jack White has shared a statement clarifying his comments comparing his songwriting style to Taylor Swift’s.
The “Seven Nation Army” rocker brought up the pop superstar in an interview with The Guardian about his new book, Collected Lyrics and Selected Writings Volume 1. He was asked if any of his songs are “entirely autobiographical.”
“Not too much,” White replied. “Now it’s become very popular in the Taylor Swift way of pop singers writing about all of their publicly aired break-ups, which I don’t find interesting at all. I think it’s a little bit boring for me to write about myself.”
According to Rolling Stone, White has since shared and deleted an Instagram post stating, “I didn’t say that I think Taylor Swift’s music was ‘boring’ or whatever click bait the net is trying to scrape together.”
“What I was trying to say in an interview I did about poetry and lyric writing, was that I don’t find it interesting at all for ME to write about MYSELF in my own lyric writing and poetry because I think that it could be repetitive for ME to always write about and It could be uninteresting for people who listen to my music to delve into, and that imaginary characters are more attractive to me as a writer,” White wrote.
“Because I say I have a way of doing things doesn’t mean that I think that EVERYONE should do it the same way,” White added while mentioning Swift’s “tremendous success.” “They should do what works for them, And they do, and it is obviously appealing to many people, and I’m glad to hear that.”
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