Seven Nation Army

Seven Nation Army is a song by the American band The White Stripes. It was the first single from their album Elephant. The single was released on May 13, 2003. In Germany, the song received a Golden Record in 2010 for selling more than 150,000 copies.

Several US and British music magazines (including Q and NME) voted Seven Nation Army among the ten best guitar songs of all time. Cover versions are available from Flaming Lips, Hard-Fi, Audioslave, Jamie Cullum, Chris Liebing, The Dynamics, Kate Nash, The BossHoss, Ben l'Oncle Soul and The Oak Ridge Boys, among others.

Background

The guitar riff, which can be heard throughout almost the entire song, was created while improvising during a sound check before a White Stripes concert in Melbourne. The theme bears some resemblance to the first main theme of the first movement of Anton Bruckner's 5th Symphony, but there is no indication that a quotation was intended.

According to Jack White, the name Seven Nation Army comes from himself. As a child, he said "Seven Nation Army" instead of "Salvation Army".

The music video is directed by Alex and Martin and shows a seemingly endless journey through a tunnel of black, white and red triangles with armed human skeletons resembling soldiers marching along the edges at some points in the video.

Cultural significance

The song gained popularity in particular through European soccer fans, who sang the melody with their own lyrics. It was first sung by fans of FC Brugge at a UEFA Champions League match in the 2003/04 season. After FC Brugge's UEFA Cup match against AS Roma in 2006, the song also gained widespread popularity in the Italian league. After the Italian national team's victory in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the riff became the anthem of Italian fans. In the meantime, fans of numerous other clubs had adapted the riff for their stadium chants. It also became increasingly popular as a goal anthem. It was also used as a background song when the national teams marched into the stadiums at the 2008 European Championships in Austria and Switzerland. Due to this, the single reached number 4 in the German single charts five years after its release in early July 2008.

Seven Nation Army is also used time and again in casting shows for contestant appearances. Popular was the version of Percival in The Voice of Germany, which could also sell as a download track and reached number 45 in the German singles charts in February 2012.

A version of the song modified by The Glitch Mob is part of the soundtrack of the action movie G.I. Joe - The Reckoning and is used in the trailers of the movie, as well as the remix was used in the trailer for the first-person shooter Battlefield 1.

Dutch darts player Michael van Gerwen, considered one of the best players in the world, uses the track as his entrance music.