It’s hard to believe that its been over a decade (almost a dozen years to be precise) since the death of Amy Winehouse, the troubled troubadour who struggled with substance abuse and addiction and who, at the tender age of 27, died of alcohol poisoning.
The British siren’s recorded output was minimal (only two albums, a third released posthumously), but utterly outsized in talent and promise. Eclectically crossing and mixing genres – largely jazz, blues, and blue-eyed soul – she channelled the girl groups of the ‘60s, at least in looks, but with tattoos and a punk snarl.
By age 24, she had racked up six Grammy nominations, but that wasn’t enough to assuage personal demons or a drug habit, which effectively ended her recording career after the monster album “Back to Black” in 2006, which perhaps fittingly produced the top song “Rehab.”
Unfortunately, the breakthrough album’s promise, like her own, was never fully realized and she became another member the infamous “27 Club” (among them Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain…) of rock stars who left in that oddly despondent year of life. Here’s the title song of that album, performed in 2008.
Lyrics
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
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
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…
I go back to us
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 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, black, black, black, black, black, black
I go back to…
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…
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black