Back to Black

    “I don’t understand,
     Why do I stress A man,
     When there’s so many bigger things at hand
     I shouldn’t play myself again,
     I should just be my own best friend,
     Not f--- myself in the head with stupid men.”

Could’ve been my words.  Could’ve been the words of so many women aching for Mr. Right.

Not my words....they’re Amy Winehouse’s in her song, “Tears Dry On Their Own.”

I never had a clue.  I didn’t follow her.  I never heard her music until after she died...at age 27.  What did I know?

My son sat me down last week and played her music for me.  I was stunned.  She was a jazz vocalist on her first album, Frank....a 60s soul singer on her second and final album, Back to Black.  She was 19 when her first album was released, 22 when Back to Black won acclaim.  She won five Grammys that year, 2006, including Best Pop Vocal Album.

When I listened to her first album this week, I broke down and sobbed.  My God, her phrasing, her originality, her range.  Her version of the Gershwin classic, “Someone To Watch Over Me,” puts Ella to shame.  “Tenderly,” made famous by Sarah Vaughan, is absolutely uniquely breathtaking. Watch the video on YouTube...she’s 19, beautiful, seemingly naive.   She loved Carol King, making “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “To Know Him is to Love Him,” mainstays in her repertoire.

Mostly, she sang her songs....I am no critic....but I would say they’re simple and raw.  She is hungry for love, obsessed by her need for a man.  She’s well aware that she’s destroying herself and hates that she cannot get in control.  In “What Is It About Men,” she sings
     “I’m nurturing, I just wanna do my thing,
     And I’ll take the wrong man as naturally as I sing
     My destructive side has grown a mile wide
     And I question myself again:  what is it ‘bout men?”

And what woman who has chosen the bad boy cannot relate to this???!!!  

In “Wake Up Alone,” she’s trying to recover from a break up...
     “It’s okay in the day I’m staying busy
     Tied up enough so I don’t have to wonder where is he
     Got so sick of crying
     So just lately
     When I catch myself I do a 180
     I stay up clean the house
     At least I’m not drinking
     Run around just so I don’t have to think about thinking
     That silent sense of content
     That everyone gets
     Just disappears soon as the sun sets”

We’ve all been there!!!  You know you’re lying in bed thinking of the man whether you sent him packing or he sent you packing....you have to get a new life and the nights are torture.

“Rehab” talks about the obvious....she just won’t do it.  I’ve had my own battles with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.  For years, I smoked weed daily...only stopping when I ran for political office.  Not good for my future to be arrested for an illegal substance.  Drinking?  Bingeing, occasionally...I swear I don’t need the 12-Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous...but maybe I’m fooling myself.  Just like Amy...
‘no, no, no.’  The cigarettes?  Can go without them for years and then start to binge occasionally on them, too.

“Rehab” from Back to Black just undoes me.
     “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said ‘no, no, no’
     Yes I’ve been black but when I come back you’ll know know know
     I ain’t got the time and if my daddy thinks I’m fine
     He’s tried to make me go to rehab but I won’t go go go.”

     “I don’t ever wanna drink again,
     I just ooh 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 ‘til these tears have dried.”

One of her producers remembers her as a teenager sitting in a corner smoking incessantly, a 2-pack a day smoker...she got emphysema in her 20s!

Her rebellion started long before she was even in high school -- acidic relationships, drugs, alcohol...cutting!

She was absorbed in self-destruction until it was time for her to perform...at least, in the early days.  Then, she would hurl those demons aside and produce the most soul stirring rendition of her life for the world to marvel at.  She unashamedly put her life on the line for all to know.  She was nothing if not explicit.

Unfortunately, the world unfamiliar with her depth will only remember her for her self-abuse.

Explicit is why I relate to her.  God knows, I’m out there for the world to see, too...the violent childhood, the need to be loved, the tragedy of dealing with loss from AIDS, raising children singlehandedly, my battle against drinking and cigarettes.  Thank God, I’m blessed with a view of the world through rose colored glasses....I always know things will be better.

Sadly, she evokes the memories of so many of our generation who self-destructed amid forays into their demons taking with them their considerable talent and unpredictable futures.  Janis Joplin....another soul singer I never appreciated until long after her passing.  Jim Morrison...Jimi Hendrix...it’s tragic, heart wrenching.

You think to yourself....HOW COULD THEY???  What about their families?  Their friends?  Their fans?  How could they throw away the amazing gifts they were given?  How could they let their demons be in control?

But, of course, it’s not about their friends and families...It’s about them.  Too much fear, not enough love.

I just have to believe there’s a magnificent chorus on the other side.