Fell in Love with a Girl

The fourth track of White Blood Cells has lyrics by Jack White and music composed by the band. It was recorded and mixed at Easley-McCain in Memphis during the three days of the album sessions. It runs one minute fifty seconds, on a strummed rhythm guitar part from Jack and a stuttering drum beat from Meg, and instead of a chorus the two sing a wordless ah-ah-ah-ah. Because it was so short, nobody expected it on the radio. XL Recordings issued it as a single in January 2002, and it reached 12 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and 21 on the UK singles chart, and went gold in the UK. It was compared to Buzzcocks and to the Pixies of the Surfer Rosa era. Tom Maginnis of AllMusic called it an attention-grabbing chunk of primal punk rock confection. Pitchfork's Dan Kilian and Ryan Schreiber called it frenzied and rollicking, and the best on the album. Rolling Stone listed it in 2007 among forty songs that changed the world, and NME placed it at number 6 on its 2011 list of the 150 best tracks of the past 15 years.

Michel Gondry directed the video, a Lego animation shot frame by frame with the bricks rebuilt for each frame. Gondry was inspired by the cover of the Cure's Three Imaginary Boys and by how the band's red, white and black reminded him of Lego. Fifteen animators took six weeks. It won Breakthrough Video, Best Special Effects and Best Editing at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, where the band also played the song. Jack said the White Stripes asked the Lego Group to pack a small set with each single and were told that Lego does not market to people over twelve. In 2012 the song accompanied the dance competition in the film Silver Linings Playbook.

Live

Of the 498 logged setlists that list songs, 157 include it. The earliest is from 17 February 2001 and the latest from 24 July 2007.