The strange case of the Beyoncé break-up anthem featuring Jack White and Led Zeppelin
Songs often come back around, especially in the age of streaming, where almost every track ever recorded is just a click away. No artist is ever truly forgotten, and their work can resurface in unexpected ways. Some argue this marks the end of originality — that no idea can be new if every song feels linked to the past. But there’s also a case to be made that it sparks more creativity, opening up surprising combinations, like when Beyoncé, Jack White and Led Zeppelin end up sharing the same sonic space.
Beyoncé has proven time and time again that she’s unafraid of straying from the lane people would rather box her into. Recently, when she released Cowboy Carter, there was genuine uproar and outrage that the singer—who has always previously worked in the veins of pop and R&B—would dare to make country music. Especially given that that record directly followed 2022’s Renaissance, a pure dance album inspired by queer ballroom culture, it was the clearest statement yet that the artist would never be boxed in. However, the signs have always been there; you simply had to take a look at the credits for 2016’s Lemonade.
But even with that clear focus on experimentation and evolution, the worlds of Beyoncé and pure rock are very different. If they were plotted on a Venn diagram, the margin of cross-over would be incredibly slim, but it would be there. In the centre of that convergence would sit Jack White, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham, as both the White Stripes singer and all of Led Zeppelin have songwriting credits on ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’. When Lemonade was released, this was the song that shook people up.
At the centre of a concept album about heartbreak, ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’ is a sonic slap to the face that no one expected from Beyoncé. It’s a brutal track, built from crunchy instrumentation and savage lyrics as she barely sings but instead screams lines like, “Who the fuck do you think I is? You ain’t married to no average bitch, boy.”
But clearly, for a song full of pure rage about Jay-Z’s infidelity, Beyoncé’s usual references and collaborators would not cut it. No pop song could accurately translate the emotion, so first, Jack White was called in. “You know, I just talked to her, and she said, ‘I wanna be in a band with you,’” White told NPR about how the surprising collaboration happened, laughing as he added, “I said, ‘Really? Well, I’d love to do something.’” In need of some help creating something angry, the rocker provided support, stating, “She took just sort of a sketch of a lyrical outline and turned into the most bodacious, vicious, incredible song.”
But he also seemingly brought in even more inspiration than just his own influence. The track samples ‘When the Levee Breaks’, a country blues song written by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy in 1929, but recorded and popularised by Led Zeppelin in 1971 on Zeppelin IV. In many ways, the decision to feature this track seems like the strangely perfect convergence of White and Beyoncé. It touches on the guitarist’s rock education while also nodding to her musical roots, as she was born and raised in Texas and has clearly always loved country.
The track samples drums from the Led Zeppelin version, pouring the brutality of their rock hit into Beyoncé’s furious track. But it’s not the only time on that album that the singer looked outside of her typical realm to soundtrack her feelings. Both Father John Misty and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are also credited as songwriters for the track ‘Hold Up’.
To White, all of this was reason enough why he found working with Beyoncé so inspiring—where she manages to pick from myriad worlds and then makes something entirely her own—telling NPR, “I’m so amazed at what she did with it.”
