Roughly midway through the 2009 rockumentary It Might Get Loud, Jack White of the late-and-lamented White Stripes shares his all-time favorite song: “Grinnin’ In Your Face” by Son House, one of the key figures of early Mississippi Delta Blues.  Played on vinyl, the song sounds like the distant echo of deep pain and defiance from the son of barely-liberated slaves, a profound and wounded cry against the inherent injustice of the world, refreshingly and hauntingly free of any sort of pretense, posturing, or crass-commercialism.  Stripped of studio-tinkering or even proper instrumentation save a quivering voice and off-time clapping, the song comes off as about as authentic and ancient an example of American Blues as can possibly be.

Except that it’s not–at least not entirely.  I once hunted down and bought that Son House album based on Jack White’s recommendation, wherein I learned that the recording Jack White plays for us in the film is actually the Colombia/Legacy release “The Original Delta Blues” (an ironic album-name, as you’ll soon realize), that was recorded not in the 1930s during House’s hey-day, but in the mid-60s, and explicitly for young white blue’s enthusiasts who wanted to hear the folks who influenced The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, etc.

These aging Blue’s artists were dragged into the studio not to see where they were at, but specifically to reproduce the music they’d quit making long ago. In fact, the CD’s very liner-notes sheepishly confess that the purpose of these recordings was to “[persuade] them to lose the carefully acquired skills of several decades and play in the fashion of their youth.” 

That is, there is not a single “Original” thing about “The Original Delta Blues”; these are suits and marketers trying to carefully reconstruct for commercial purposes an era that had long passed away.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me–the Son House recordings are still fantastic, and I certainly don’t begrudge Son House for finally finding adulation and record sales late in his career (better late than never), and besides, a man’s gotta eat.  Please don’t mistake me for one of those who fetishize authenticity.

In fact, that’s just the thing–what is authenticity?  That’s why I find Jack White’s choice to play 60s-era Son House in the film so fascinating, for White is a man who himself play’s fast and loose with (and thus calls attention to) the nebulous, vague, and imprecise concept of authenticity.

The White Stripes, for example, notoriously spent years teasing their fans as to what exactly was the relationship between Jack White and Meg White–were they brother and sister?  Boyfriend and girlfriend?  Husband and wife? The eventual reveal that they were a divorced-couple somehow still friends was one of those facts that was stranger than the wildest speculation–and the reveal that Jack had changed his last name to hers during the marriage, and then never changed it back after the divorce, rendered Jack’s identity even more indiscernible.

Jack White is also notorious for telling fake and contradictory stories with a wink during interviews, never giving away too much, posturing multiple different identities, and muddying up any attempts to pin him down. His music likewise matches his varied personality–he tries on many different identities, from garage-rock punk, to acoustic singer-songwriter, arena-anthem rock-star, mariachi-cantador, piano-balladeer, blues-guitar virtuoso, and more.

All of these are assumed identities; many of them are retro throwbacks and antiquated forms from a historical moment that has long passed (like Son House’s music); half of them are ripped-off from Black-art-forms long-ago appropriated by whites (maybe Jack’s decision to so change his last name isn’t so coincidental); none originate with him; and yet at the same time, when you listen to his albums, none of them feel inauthentic.  Jack White seems to sincerely love, pay tribute, and feel a kinship with each of these genres.  These are all assumed roles, but he’s assumed them because they are him.

That is, Jack White seems hell-bent on demonstrating that just because an identity is assumed, doesn’t mean it’s not real.

And it’s here that I can’t help but note the number identities we assume in the Church and the Gospel (not the same thing, of course).

There are of course the many callings we hold in the Church–teachers, presidencies, bishoprics, secretaries, missionaries, etc.–that we cycle through a lifetime of service. Indeed, how easily we forget that, in the vast majority of faiths, one’s “calling” is singular and essential: “minister,” “monk,” “nun,” and so forth. Once I had a non-member roommate whom, when I mentioned my new recent “calling,” raised his eyebrows in interest at my life-changing decision, till I explained to him that it’s just a technical term for the various hats we wear–like Jack White, we are constantly trying on numerous identities that are all just as provisional as they are nevertheless still real.

Then of course there are things like the much more sacred Temple Endowment, wherein we take upon ourselves a new name, a secret one that we will present only to God himself at the great and last day–which naturally implies that there were other names we were known by before we were even born. Correction: not implies, but core part of our doctrine–in our theology, Adam the first man was previously Michael; Noah was Gabriel; and etc. Our singular doctrine of the pre-mortal existence opens up a whole host of infinite identities we may have cycled through before we ever arrived on this Earth–and with infinite more to experience after we leave it, as we continue on our Eternal Progression.

And of course we take upon ourselves the name of Christ–who in turn has many identities as well, e.g. Wonderful, Counselor, the Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, not to mention the Creator, the Savior, the Redeemer, our Advocate with the Father, the carpenter, Rabbi, Master, Mary’s son, and all those other infinite and eternal “hats” he’s worn.

It’s one of the many paradoxes of religious life, as spoken of from G.K. Chesterton to Terryl Givens, that we are to “be as little children” (or at least play guitar like a young man, as Son House was), while also rise up clothed in the power and grace of the Almighty (also like Son House, come to think of it).

Now, you might here argue that Jack White is just another white-dude appropriating and profiteering off black artists and black art-forms, and you may even be right to say so. But perhaps a slightly more charitable reading would be that White is trying to tap into the same diversity of infinite identities that House seemed to understand. It’s why House isn’t fooled by those hypocrites who grin in your face, anymore than Christ was; yet also like Christ, House is able to pay the hypocrites no mind, because he knows he has a multiplicity of divine identities that they will never be able to pin down.

The irony is that the hypocrites, by trying to pass off a fake face for a real one, are in fact limiting themselves, since the honest-in-heart know that there is not one true face but many, even infinite. They have damned themselves simply by virtue of embracing too few identities, not too many. When the Apostle Paul said “I am all things to all men,” in this he was but following the example of the Savior. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” warned Emerson, trained at a divinity school himself. Behold, these are Eternal Lives (to quote the D&C), and to be more than your adversaries is salvation indeed. This, apparently, both Jack White and Son House intuited and understood.