A frank appreciation of Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse

I believe Amy Winehouse is well named. Because the songs she writes are like wine, rich tinto. Intoxicating and addictive because however many times heard, one wants another pour, one more glass of Amy.

I believe as a songwriter she is far ahead of any in her generation. So far ahead, is my contention, that three songs she has written are in fact, new standards. For R&B, for soul, for music. She’s that good. And before people far more knowledgeable in music, jump me, beat me for my ignorance, my presumption-let me at least render my appreciation of these three songs.

Because each one has inner life, a story to tell. And each one, has the hard contrariness of real feeling, real life. And each one has room in it, depth and stretch. For all the adjustments, nuances a female throat can lend a song. For any singer brave enough to take on Amy’s own interpretation, that is. Since she has a voice to match the songs.

Wine, I said. And from the vintage of ‘06, here’s my pick:

‘YOU KNOW I’m no good’

‘Back to black’

‘Rehab’

And if that sounds like Amy’s life–I for one won’t comment. It is her life–belongs to her and not to any of us. And if that sounds hard, contrarious, paradoxical–not to want to save a talent one loves instinctually, immediately–it is the same place these songs come from. The press, for that wine.

R&B is meant to be heard live, understand. Because by comparison a studio recording is cool, detached-it’s missing that heat. From bodies pressing, flowing blood, lungs and hearts pumping-that electricity between singer and band and crowd, unmistakable when the stars are aligned.

And yes, I know Shepherd’s Bush was special, and you can get it on DVD, but…for me the stars aligned over Belfort, June 29^th, 2007.

Not that I was there, understand. But on YouTube, a moment lives forever

And at that moment Amy was happy, healthy–all of Amy. Showing us, how these songs should be sung.

Here’s my advice: listen and watch, once through. Then listen again, while I try to keep time. Try to explain, why these songs are so good.

YOU KNOW I’m no good (Amy Winehouse)

I must take Amy at her word. “Fuck Billie Holiday,” she once declared. But this song is Amy’s Don’t Explain. With–Amy being Amy–the roles reversed. Though it’s not clear, as the song goes, “who truly stuck the knife in first.”

Meet you downstairs in the bar and hurt,
Your rolled up sleeves in your skull t-shirt,
You say, “What did you do with him today?”
And sniffed me out like I was Tanqueray.

Flat on the page the words are, well, flat. But not when Amy sings them. Flirty, uncertain, defiant–with the turn, of tables and sentiment, that characterizes this song.

‘Cause you’re my fella my guy,
Hand me your Stella and fly,
By the time I’m out the door,
You tear men down like Roger Moore.

Inner life, I said. And as if opening a door, Amy’s voice with the words and the coloring, brilliance she gives them, let us in. And she likes the possessiveness, jealousy, violent protectiveness–is the turn of this verse. To lead to the larger turn that is the chorus.

I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I’m no good

Amy’s Don’t Explain, I said. And like that song, about capture, inevitability, addiction. Except it is her own wandering faithlessness confessed–at the same time there’s nothing so simple, in any of Amy’s songs. This, in all of them: that inside any sentiment, like a shadow, is its opposition.

Upstairs in bed with my ex boy,
He’s in a place but I can’t get joy,
Thinking on you in the final throes,
This is when my buzzer goes.
Run out to meet you, chips and pitta,
You say “when we married”,
’cause you’re not bitter,
“There’ll be none of him no more.”
I cried for you on the kitchen floor.

Amy runs verse into verse, verse into chorus-Amy is Amy. But these two belong together, since one is the turn in the other. From languid, too facile conquest, down to “I cried for you on the kitchen floor.” And if Amy is incongruously cute on that last lyric–that promise of “when we married” had been fulfilled, six weeks before this concert she’d married her fella. Why she was happy…

I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I’m no good

The turn in, on herself, in that “Like I knew I would”-then the turn out, in that “I told you”. The reverse of Don’t Explain’ which has “Hush now, don’t explain,/You’re my joy and pain”. The reverse, but somehow, that same pain.

Sweet reunion, Jamaica and Spain,
We’re like how we were again,
I’m in the tub, you on the seat,
Lick your lips as I soap my feet.

Like a rising sun and breath the coloring she gives that first lyric. To lead into the easy intimacy she paints next-though we should know by now, she’s only setting us up again.

Then you notice likkle carpet burn,
My stomach drop and my guts churn,
You shrug and it’s the worst,
Who truly stuck the knife in first.

The turn most violent, clearest here, from fullness to emptiness in lurch then the sly, knowing cruel in that shrug. And as a straight steal from Amy’s life, like Don’t Explain was as straight a steal from Billie’s.

I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know I’m no good,
I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I’m no good.

A paradox of Amy’s choruses, particularly on the closing repeat, that they are a musical resolution but not a sentimental one–the contradiction and pain remain in place. Perhaps that is why her songs are addictive–one never quite gets enough. Though–not to push the point–that’s also true of Billie’s.

Back to black (Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson)

Of all Amy’s songs, this one is most viscerally felt, particularly by women. It’s Amy’s Good Morning, Heartache, except…Billie’s song is from inside the black, Amy’s at the brink. And all the more heartbreaking from that.

He left no time to regret,
Kept his dick wet,
With his same old safe bet,
Me, and my head high,
And my tears dry,
Get on without my guy.

Billie waits to tell her story–Amy’s comes right away. And frank, defiant as per Amy.

You went back to what you knew,
So far removed from all that we went through,
And I tread a troubled track,
My odds are stacked,
I’ll go back to black.

Except…the turn must come, the change from “he” to “you”, flat stomp to a quickening urgency and dread.

We only said goodbye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her,
And I go back…

The singular genius of this song, I believe, is in the chorus. The plea at a brink it is, all of a complex welling sentiment caught in that “only”.

I go back to us.

Plea, and never as sincere, reaching.

I love you much,
It’s not enough,
You love blow and I love puff,
And life is like a pipe,
And I’m a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside.

We know what the pipe is for, we know what that ‘penny’ is. And all this song builds to this single incandescent image. Disturbing, intimate, frank. Nowhere else but Good Morning, Heartache, its own incandescence at “It seems I met you,/when my love went away”, to paint so clear the helpless self-extinction from abandonment.

We only said goodbye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her,
And I go back to.
We only said goodbye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her,
And I go back to.

Every woman who’s ever heard this song knows these words, mouths or sings them with Amy. Ask them, why.

Black. Black. Black. Black. Black. Black. Black.
I go back to,
I go back to.

A thousand ways to sing this, and 999 of them wrong. Because it is not that flat, dim void opening beneath one, but the blind upwelling hope and reaching out of that…

We only said goodbye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her,
And I go back to.
We only said goodbye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her,
And I go back to black.

Unresolved, irresolvable, like all Amy’s choruses. Like abandonment itself, whence the singular genius of this song.

Rehab (Amy Winehouse)

“Poignant,” Amy wanted her second record to be. Yet this song seems all defiance. Seems, I said. Because as with any sulky adolescent, what all its ‘attitude’ hides, is a gaping vulnerability and poignancy below. Amy’s T’ain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do as the inevitable comparison.

They tried to make me go to rehab I said no no no,
Yes I’ve been black but when I come back no no no,
I ain’t got the time, and if my daddy thinks I’m fine,
They tried to make go to rehab I won’t go go go.

The turn in this song, is that the chorus is the throwaway sentiment–the real, is what the verses paint, piece by piece. Like Billie’s song, all brassy strut and stomp unless one listens up and close.

I’d rather be at home with Ray,
I ain’t got 70 days,
‘Cause there’s nothing, there’s nothing you can teach me,
That I can’t learn from Mr Hathaway,
Didn’t get a lot in class,
But I know it don’t come in a shot glass.

Seems defiance continued but for the coloring lent the words, the lift and urgency at “there’s nothing, there’s nothing you can teach me”. While Donny Hathaway and a shot glass, whatever the bravado, is not a good combination.

They tried to make me go to rehab I said no no no,
Yes I’ve been black but when I come back no no no,
I ain’t got the time and if my daddy thinks I’m fine,
They tried to make me go back to rehab I won’t go go go.

Paradoxical, that the chorus leads the song and its stomp but is retreat, withdrawal, denial.

The man said “Why do you think you here?”,
I said I got no idea,
I’m gonna, I’m gonna lose my baby,
So I always keep a bottle near,
He said “I just think you’re depressed”
This me “Yeah, baby, and the rest”

In this version Amy alters the lyric, from “I’m gonna, I’m gonna” to “I’ll never, I’ll never lose my baby”. But injects the same lift and urgency and reach-same heartbreak in the line. And what wells up at “depressed” is the real that the chorus must then retreat from.

They tried to make me go to rehab I said no no no,
Yes I’ve been blind but when I come back no no no.

The sulkiness of the chorus, the turn to defiance which is also a strange building helplessness. Not as cool as Billie’s “If I should take a notion,/To jump into the ocean,/T’aint nobody’s bizness if I do”–but to the same effect.

I don’t never want to drink again,
I just, ohh I just need a friend,
I’m not gonna spend ten weeks,
Have everyone think I’m on the mend,
It’s not just my pride,
It’s just till these tears have dried.

“A sentiment,” Amy said some of her songs begin as, only a sentiment. But like Amy herself, complex and changeable and volatile as a storm, turning in place.

They tried to make me go to rehab I said no no no,
Yes I’ve been black but when I come back no no no,
I ain’t got the time and if my daddy thinks I’m fine,
They tried to make go to rehab I won’t go go go.

The chorus unable to resolve what the verses have painted—out of Amy’s songs this one, I believe, the most like Amy’s contradictory self. Why I suspect I’m wrong about this song becoming a standard. Not that it’s not good–but who’ll try to claim this one from Amy?

Valerie (Dave McCabe, The Zutons)

It’s not Amy’s song, meaning she didn’t write it. But it is hers now. And if you don’t believe me, just listen. I’ll wait. “Ms. Amy Winehouse, people,” indeed. And don’t say, I didn’t warn you. About what breaks and bursts open at, oh, 3:09 or so.

“Poignant,” Amy wanted. And like this song, Amy herself has become the most poignant artist in music today. And as far at that bit at the beginning about not wanting to save Amy–I was lying of course. But I find the blind impulse hard to explain, though I’ll try.

Amy’s songs are about hard things: love lost, addiction, the irresolvable contradictions in our selves. And as straight steals from Amy’s own life so real. The territory of the blues, why I must link Amy to Billie even if she disinvite the comparison.

But here’s the paradox of the blues, that they are about hard things, real things. But when a singer and band are ‘on’ as Amy and her band were ‘on’ that night–when singer and band and crowd commit together to the depth, breadth of a song–the result is joy, a pure joy.

So past the paradoxes that Amy be, here’s another to mull: wanting Amy back from black because we’re ourselves addicted to her, that joy.

Avec un gros merci a Jar0 pour une presque parfaite transcription, et pour savoir ou couper.

the concert: live at Les Eurockeennes de Belfort 2007

Thanks to soulofamywinehouse you can watch the entire concert here.

Possibly the best of Amy’s career (so far)–certainly the tightest. A set of 14 songs, and not a sloppy note in any of them. Just over 50 minutes of Amy–here’s the play list:

Addicted (Amy Winehouse)

Just friends (Amy Winehouse)

Tears dry on their own (Amy Winehouse, Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson)

He can only hold her (Amy Winehouse, Richard Poindexter, Robert Poindexter)

Back to black (Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson)

Wake up alone (Amy Winehouse, Paul O’Duffy)

Love is a losing game (Amy Winehouse)

Cupid (Sam Cooke)

Hey little rich girl (Roddy Byers)

Monkey man (Frederick Hibbert)

Rehab (Amy Winehouse)

Valerie (Dave McCabe, The Zutons)

YOU KNOW I’m no good (Amy Winehouse)

Me & Mr Jones (Amy Winehouse)

And the players:

Amy Winehouse vocals

Robin Banerjee guitar

Hawi Gondwe guitar

Frank Tontoh drums

Dale Davis bass

Sam Beste keyboards

Berry Collins trumpet

Francis Samuel Walden baritone saxophone

James Hunt saxophone

Zalon Thompson backing vocals

Derek Green backing vocals

And if she doesn’t have you hooked five minutes in-no hope for ya.