Hotel Yorba

The Hotel Yorba is a former hotel built in 1926 in southwest Detroit, near I-75 and the Ambassador Bridge and a couple of blocks from Jack's childhood home. As a child he heard a rumor that the Beatles had stayed there. The rumor was false, but he loved it. The song began in Jack's earlier band Two-Star Tabernacle. It was released as the lead single from White Blood Cells on 12 November 2001, a country song unlike the punk and rock the band was known for. The single version was recorded in room 206 of the building, and the band were refused permission to film inside for the video. It is rumored that they are banned for life.

The B-side was a live cover of Loretta Lynn's Rated X. Dan John Miller directed the video and Kevin Carrico shot it, mixing footage of Meg and Jack indoors, on a porch and at a wedding in a cathedral. After a day of filming ran until midnight there was still film in the camera, and the video for We're Going to Be Friends was shot in one take. Pitchfork's Dan Kilian and Ryan Schreiber heard a glee-filled boogie with Jack's voice almost on the verge of a yodel. Paste and Stereogum ranked the song seventh and fourth on their lists of the best White Stripes songs. It was used in a deleted scene of 28 Days Later and appears on the soundtrack CD. Third Man Records reissued the single on opaque red vinyl for Black Friday Record Store Day in 2012.

Live

Of the 498 logged setlists that list songs, 371 include it, second only to Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground at 392. The earliest is from 17 February 2001 and the latest from 31 July 2007.