White Houses (song)

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"White Houses"

Single by Vanessa Carlton
from the album Harmonium
Released	August 30, 2004 (U.S. radio)^[1] October 13, 2004 (Japan)
Format	Promo single, 5" CD single
Genre	Piano pop
Length	3:42
Label	A&M (U.S.) AMRR-11209-2 Universal Records (Japan) UICS-5028
Writer(s)	Vanessa Carlton, Stephan Jenkins
Producer(s)	Stephan Jenkins
Chart positions
#86 (U.S.)
Vanessa Carlton singles chronology
"Big Yellow Taxi" (2003)	"White Houses" (2004)	"Private Radio" (2004)

"White Houses" is a pop song written by American singer Vanessa Carlton and Stephan Jenkins, and recorded for Carlton's second album Harmonium (2004). Produced by Jenkins, it was released as the album's first single in 2004 (see 2004 in music).

1 About the record
2 Controversy and Punk'd
3 Credits
4 Track listings
5 Charts
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links

[edit] About the record

"White Houses" is structured around a 4/4 time signature which Blender magazine has described as "bright" and "un-girly",^[2] and is backed by an orchestral arrangement that PopMatters magazine said "would make Jim Steinman blush".^[3] Carlton said of the song: "It's about jealousy, it's about losing your virginity, it's about living on your own. It's a story that most people can relate to ... It's really the journey of one girl and her perception of her environment and how she starts out as a wide-eyed person, but everyone gets hardened by life, but not necessarily to the point where you can't feel anymore". She has also said it is about "rites of passage".^[4] "White Houses" was the first song Carlton and Jenkins wrote together, and Lindsey Buckingham of the band Fleetwood Mac played acoustic guitar on the track after Jenkins met Buckingham, who was recording in the same building as Carlton, and invited him to listen to the song. Carlton said, "he just came in, played this great riff, recorded it and then he left. It all happened very fast, and turned out amazing". The song provided the inspiration for a charity project, Building White Houses. It began on November 9, 2004 and ended on December 31, 2005, and its aim was to raise money for Habitat for Humanity International.

Rolling Stone compared the song to Carlton's debut single "A Thousand Miles" (2002), defining "White Houses" as "another spazzy, arpeggiated single ... which is not about the real White House but does kind of conjure the Bush twins jamming in a drop-top".^[5] A critic for Billboard magazine said of the song: "it bears the do-it-my-way signature of a singer/songwriter who relies on piano; a meandering, storytelling lyrical style; and deceptively sweet vocals that underlie an intellectual bent ... The result is a highly original composition that makes you really want to listen and understand — and then sing along."^[6] PopMatters magazine presented a much more negative summary of the song, by saying that it "basically sums up everything that's wrong with [Harmonium]: An overly familiar vocal melody, juvenile "Dear Diary" lyrics... and a bombastic backing arrangement".^[3]

"White Houses" describes a young woman losing her virginity, while "Annie" is a song Carlton wrote after she met a girl suffering from leukemia while on tour.^[7] "Private Radio", which is about insomnia, was originally supposed to be the album's lead single, and "San Francisco" and "Who's To Say" are the only love songs. Carlton has said "Morning Sting", a song that was dropped from the album, is about "emotions being so raw in the morning".^[8]

The single reached number eighty-six on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, though it peaked within the top forty on Billboard's Top 40 Mainstream and Adult Top 40 charts. It also reached the top twenty of the non-Billboard chart ARC Weekly Top 40, and was the chart's seventy-sixth most successful single of the year. Slant magazine named it the sixth best single of 2004, writing: "[it's] the kind of song that truly cements a career ... poignant, bloody, fleeting, and beautiful, much like adolescence".^[9] Blender magazine ranked "White Houses" at number forty-three on its "100 Best Songs of 2004" list.^[10] The song failed to chart in Japan, and in Taiwan "Private Radio" was the album's first single.

Anti-folk singer Kimya Dawson performed a cover of "White Houses" during a live concert at Falmouth, Maine in May 2005.^[11] Carlton had previously contributed backing vocals to a track on Dawson's 2004 album Hidden Vagenda.

[edit] Controversy and Punk'd

The single's video was directed by Sophie Muller, and features two versions of Carlton: one plays the piano whilst the other dances across the room. Carlton appeared to world-premiere the video on MTV's Total Request Live in the U.S. on August 11, 2004, and it debuted on VH1 on August 26.^[12]^[13] MTV, VH1 and some radio stations censored the song because of its lyrics. Carlton later described the situation as "just, you know, frustrating sometimes because they can pick and choose, which I don't think is fair if you want to make a statement."^[14] She attributed the censoring of the song to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy involving Janet Jackson which had occurred earlier that year.^[15]

"White Houses" became the subject of a prank that Ashton Kutcher pulled on Carlton for the MTV television show Punk'd. During Carlton's rehearsal for a scheduled performance on The Tonight Show in November 2004, Kutcher's Punk'd crewmembers (disguised as staff from The Tonight Show) said Carlton needed to change both the bridge of the song and the line "I'm too thin" (in light of the publicity surrounding Mary-Kate Olsen's bout of anorexia nervosa). Upon realisation that it was a trick, Carlton told Kutcher, "All I have to say is 'thank the fucking Lord'". (She performed the original version of the song on The Tonight Show on November 18, 2004, and the Punk'd episode was aired in May 2005.)