Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [34]
Perhaps Amy’s most vocally rich song, ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’ is one of the best-known tracks on the album. It attempts the classic Northern Soul technique of combining a sad theme with a happy, upbeat tune and pulls it off marvellously. Sampling the Motown classic ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’, written by Ashford & Simpson and recorded by Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye, and Diana Ross, it is instantly catchy and danceable. Here, Amy is once more heartbroken but she has grown up and toughened up. Therefore, though she cries over the loss, her tears can dry on their own this time.
Ushered in by some choppy chords on a reverb-laden guitar, the dreamy air of ‘Wake Up Alone’ reflects its lyric, in which Amy describes the aftermath of a break-up. She is staying strong during the day and brings herself up when she finds herself crying. Keeping herself busy, she can stay on top of her emotions while awake. However, it is in her sleep that she has sweat-soaked dreams about him and is, of course, then hurt when she wakes up alone. When she dedicated this song to her imprisoned husband Blake during her winter tour she reduced many audience members to tears, this author included.
A ‘Stand By Your Man’ for the twenty-first century, ‘Some Unholy War’ is rarely commented on, which is a shame, because, despite a comparatively uninspiring musical performance, the lyric is inspired and decidedly Amy-esque. She’ll stand beside her man whatever fight he is fighting, with her drunken pride and battered guitar case. Her Billie Holiday-style vocals complement the organ and tambourine background neatly. At two minutes and twenty-two seconds, it is the album’s shortest tune.
Fans of the Four Tops will have been delighted by ‘He Can Only Hold Her’. With nods to James Brown and modern hip hop in its beat, it is a happy tune, certainly when compared with much of the rest of the album. The guitar flows effortlessly and Amy croons over it about the complexities of a particularly tricky relationship. A classic Motown tune, it again deserves a better reputation than it has.
‘Addicted’ is a wonderfully happy, carefree conclusion to an often dark album. A happy, summery song, it features Amy mischievously singing about a friend’s boyfriend who keeps smoking all her weed. Here Amy is sassy, defiant and witty, and the listener can hear the smile on her face as she warns her friend that she won’t let her boyfriend back into the house unless he has his own supplies, and that she will be stricter than an airport security team. In the final twist of the album, Amy reveals that weed has done more for her than any dick ever has. Perhaps her happiest ever song, Amy often uses ‘Addicted’ to kick off her live sets, those familiar opening bass lines setting up many an evening of music and joy.
The response to Back to Black was, almost universally, not just positive but absolutely joyously admiring. Indeed, the album surely rates as one of the most consensus-forming releases of recent times. Where the reviews of Frank had been largely complimentary, the response to Back to Black was almost orgasmic. Helen Brown, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said,
Her voice slithers from the soapy-sinuous sound of a woman who can wrap two lovers round her ‘likkle’ finger, to the heartbroken throaty graze of one left crying on a kitchen floor. Living with raw conviction through the emotional experience of each song on Back to Black, Winehouse proves herself a true urban diva.
The Guardian’s Dorian Lynskey called it ‘a 21st-century soul classic’.
Describing Amy as ‘a heavily tattooed, 23-year-old north Londoner with fluctuating weight, a penchant for drink