We're Going to Be Friends

The song follows a boy and a girl who become friends at the start of the school year, and it mentions Suzy Lee, who also gives her name to a song on the band's first album. Jack said that writing about childhood was his way of contributing to the blues tradition. One lyric came from a Paul McCartney interview about writing Yellow Submarine, and the song was partly inspired by Big Star's Thirteen. Jack wrote it on an ex-girlfriend's bed, and it is his favorite White Stripes song. It was only released as a promotional recording in 2002, but became one of the band's most popular songs. In the video, shot in one take after the Hotel Yorba video, Jack plays on a couch outside their house at night while Meg sleeps.

It was the first White Stripes song used in a film, Napoleon Dynamite in 2004, and the band approved its use. It also appears in Wonder in 2017. Tom Maginnis of AllMusic called it a sweet acoustic ballad. Pitchfork's Dan Kilian and Ryan Schreiber named it the closest thing to a dud on the album, though they said its softness gives the record's midpoint time to inhale. On 20 February 2009, at Conan O'Brien's request, the band played an alternate version on the final episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which proved to be its last live performance.

Live

Of the 498 logged setlists that list songs, 282 include it. The earliest is from 15 November 2000 and the latest from 20 February 2009.