#3
Back To Black – Amy Winehouse
Album: Back to Black
Year: 2006
“I go back to black,” means more coming from Amy Winehouse than any other artist, although she says it outright only twice. In the opening verses, it reads (listens?) like a topic sentence and in the bridge, like a…well, like nothing but what it is: resignation. Here in this song, Ms. Winehouse is a woman who knows her natural state. The kicker, of course, and the reason for which I believe the phrase belongs to her above anyone else, is that everyone knows. Because Amy is “troubled.” Because her messy habits and bent for sullied living were aired daily. Whatever sordid particulars the titular “black” refers to, we understand its intrinsic meaning through some sort of collaborative thesis on what makes this artist who she is. I had a roommate in college who read Perez Hilton daily, so I knew her as “some crackhead over in London” before I’d ever heard her sing. There was a website (discovered, I believe, by the same roommate) where you could place bets on whether she or Britney Spears would die first, and what kind of timeline they were on. She is one year older than I am. She is also the most accomplished blue-eyed soul singer since Dusty Springfield. So they say, so we all know. And in this knowledge, she exists for us in a state of inherent loss, of foregone tragedy. She – and her talent, her well of stylishly-wrought, horrifying sadness – are already slipping through our fingers.
Here are the objective basics. It sounds like the sixties. It’s got “Be My Baby” drums. It’s about the end of an affair. It sounds terrific; Mark Ronson’s production is spot-on. Of all her catalogue, there can be no doubt this is her best song. Gone are the embarrassing bravado of “Rehab,” the sexual posturing of “You Know I’m No Good,” or any attempt at the lighthearted subjects chez, “Me & Mr. Jones,” or “Fuck Me Pumps.” Even “Tears Dry on Their Own,” which comes closest thematically to this crumbling fortress of song, falls short by virtue of its vague optimism.
My tendency for spontaneous autobiographical disclosure finds itself sorely tempted when listening to this song; like misery, confession loves company and and artist who proclaims in her opening stanzas “kept his dick wet/with his same old safe bet,” is good company. So we will leave it at this, Amy: from one former Other Woman to another, bravo. And it would really kill me if I thought there was someone out there that couldn’t understand how “Back to Black” can be both a balm and an agony and that it’s worth its many listens.
