Amy Winehouse

I saw Amy Winehouse in 2007, I think. It was at a night club in Soho or Picadilly, where dub step was being played and strangely enough she performed live with a band. The atmosphere was charged, the dance floor packed, sweat and funk filled the room and suddenly a tiny dishevelled woman walked in and everyone became self conscious. The tension was palpable, you could feel stardom and I thought: who the f**k is this? She went on stage, tottering, drunk, threw off her flat ballet shoes and barefoot began to sing. Well, it wasn't exactly singing, it was a few words, croaks, horn-like sounds. You could tell there was something great there, but it wouldn't come out. I thought, what's the big deal? Another hyped "artist" and I forgot all about it, never even asked her name. I feel ashamed now, that I judged her as I often do, on the basis of fame. I instinctively brush away people that are supposed to be famous but can't command the stage or have magnetism. I know I am wrong now. Amy clearly was never great on stage, she was good but not great. The studio was her realm, the place where she towered above everyone else. Now that she's died, I have decided to listen to her two albums and they are amazing. She was a huge talent that could have matured into something very unusual, but then again she might never have. Amy sung about her life and that is always dangerous. If you sing about you, without metaphors, transformations, then your life becomes your songs and vice versa. You are forced to draw your subjects from your experiences directly and your life pulls you into outrageous situations to create those songs. Its a self destructive prophesy that has consumed many flames. Amy believed so much in the ethos of jazz singers that came before her, that she embodied their collective voice, lifestyle, soul and ultimately death. She was on a runaway train to her grave. I have read many articles about her tattoos, her drug and alcohol addiction, her background etc... But these are all surface observations. Amy wanted to be loved, to be a house wife, a jewish mamma surrounded by kids and a loving husband. Instead, she became ridiculously famous, unhappy and unlucky in love. No man could accept her for who she was. And that is her tragedy, she never wanted fame, maybe she never even wanted to sing for a public. It just happened. The show business circus did its work, transforming her into a grotesque freak, a living painting surrounded by loneliness and bodyguards; her heart broke. Like a songbird in a cage that longs for it's freedom, we all looked in, marvelled, professed our love but never did a thing. Amy died like Billy Holiday, a broken addict used by all, loved by none.