I was on holiday in Spain when the news came over the television that Amy Winehouse had died. I gave the same little sigh of sadness and shock when news like that arrives but in the seconds afterwards I realised that though there was shock there was sadly little surprise. Like the news of Kurt Cobain there seemed something inevitable, like the biography had already written this ending. During her seven years at the very top of the music scene we had watched a young girl destruct in front of our eyes. I have the privilege to know some of rock’s top 21st Century stars and therefore know that the lifestyle of the majority is no longer the drugged out reckless living of the sixties. Most do their jobs in recording studios and concert venues and then go home to partners and families. Amy Winehouse was a different breed, who along with Pete Docherty lived a rock star life based on the old model. Her massive album Back To Black started with the insatiably catchy Rehab and ended with Addiction. The third album had taken five years and was still not finished and it seems like for years we have been reading the “Amy Comeback Ends As Singer Forgets Words” tabloid headline. Where there was smoke there was indeed fire and sadly Amy burned out.
Nowadays the death of any celebrity becomes a religious event. Perhaps it is what a post Christian/religious country does to fill its spiritual void; the communal outpouring of emotion at sites of home or death, sites that become sacred and get cluttered with flowers, photos and memorabilia. As I watched the TV news and saw the almost liturgical gathering at Amy Winehouse’s home I had a sense of dismay when I noticed that people had left vodka bottles as their mark of respect. It would be like leaving bullets at John Lennon’s apartment or a gun at Kurt Cobain’s house. If that comes across in shockingly bad taste then you have gotten my point. To pay homage to Winehouse with the very cause of her destruction sends alarm bells ringing about the state of the nation’s soul.
So what of her musical legacy? That she was a talent can be taken as read. That she was popular is verified by the fact that Back to Black is the biggest selling record of the century so far. That she was influential can be seen by the list of careers that would never have happened without her, Beth Rowley, Rumer, Duffy and Adele to name but three. She had this eclectic mix, founded on the bed rock of jazz then adding a pop sheen while digging deep into the blues to find her cathartic soul. Her vocation was certainly catharsis. We don’t only need melancholy music we love it. We all suffer loss and heartache and Winehouse looked into the vast chasm of her own pain and created beautiful music with that amazing voice. Sadly, it didn’t exorcize her own demons if it helped many of us deal with ours. Should Back to Black be up there with Sgt Peppers or Nevermindas one of the best albums ever made, as has been suggested by some critics, I am not so sure. Like her fans, I as an amateur critic would like to have heard more, watched what she might have done in the next twenty years. Sadly, that chance is gone.
And sadness is the word for my surmising. Here was a brilliant young Jewish woman, very gifted and able who was taken from us far too young. Did the music and the excesses that that opened up for her cause it? Who knows but there were deep flaws in Amy Winehouse’s make up that might reflect the society she grew up in. She had issues with image and the difference in her appearance from her earliest photos to the girl who passed away show frightening weight loss. Along with that, the need to be more perfect than the very great talent she already was caused deep her depression. These might have been contributing factors to her disappearing into the drugs and drink that was the immediate cause of her tragedy but they are the factors we as a nation need to pastorally look at and learn from in order to help the many others who might die in similar ways but whose passing won’t gain the attention of a rock star.
Your piece crackles with contradictions. You champion, egg on, support U2 in their quest for celebrity and stardom but weep over Amy Winehouse's 'sad' demise.
Posted by: Andrew | 05/09/2011 at 04:21 PM