Songfacts®:

• "What's Done Is Done" opens as a country ballad before sliding into soul. Jack White told the story of the song to Uncut:
  
  "That came out of the time when I first started writing for the album. I'd rented a place in an apartment building and I was just writing melodies with no instruments – I would just sit down and start singing, Then I'd record the vocal and try to add a guitar or piano over the melody without being loud enough so the neighbors could hear. When I got to the studio with that, I was like, 'OK, let's take a country song like this and play it with nothing but modern instrumentation – let's just see what it's like to have a country song performed with 808 drum machines and synthesizers."
• The song's lyrics are inspired by the absurdity of American gun laws. Jack White explained to Q Magazine:
  
  "It's an exploration of how easy it is to buy a gun and ask what is that character going through? The hero syndrome in America is pretty ridiculous. The idea that some evil man's going to break in and I'm going to pull out this magic weapon and save the family? That never happens. Statistically you're more likely to shoot yourself or hurt someone you love by accident. But he who holds the gun is the hero, and we've been taught that since we were babies."