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Amy-Winehouse---Generic-Interview


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#1 Uno

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Posted 23 January 2015 - 11:52 AM

I found this interview using Google cache for universal-music-services.de. The link to the original page for it was dead and it didn't have a title or a date, they just had it posted as Amy-Winehouse---Generic-Interview.doc...


In the tiny dressing room of a London TV studio, Amy Winehouse is tearing her hair out. No, she’s not having a tantrum because her appearance on the morning programme meant arriving here ridiculously early, barely 24 hours after she returned to the UK from Miami and went straight into a midnight show in London club. Such has been the runaway success of her second album, Back To Basics, the 23-year-old singer is used to not much sleep.

No, Winehouse is just having her hair extensions re-applied. Big clumps of black tresses lie on her thighs and float onto the sofa. ‘I’m really paranoid about people seeing me without my hair in…’ she says between sucks on a straw poking out of a bright-red fruit smoothie.

Luckily her boyfriend Alex, a chef, is here to offer reassurance. He sits right in front of her, holding her hand, while hairdresser and make-up assistant fuss around behind. Up this close to the most celebrated female singer of 2006/7 it’s possible to see some of the myriad tattoos she’s acquired since the release of her 2003 debut album, Frank. Directly above her left breast is the name of her former boyfriend, Blake. Their break-up inspired some of Back To Basics’ more heartbreaking songs – such as You Know I’m No Good – and led to Winehouse’s much-publicised battles with drinking, smoking (weed) and (not) eating. ‘I don’t want to talk about Blake,’ she says, shooting a glance towards Alex. ‘That’s really inconsiderate.’

Fair point. What about the tattoo that says ‘Never clip my wings’ – what does that mean?

‘My fella and I had a row,’ she says, grinning guiltily at Alex, ‘and I woke up in the morning and he’d gone. And I just thought, “you know what, I can’t be tamed…” Although,’ she adds with a squeeze of Alex’s hand, ‘I kind of have been.’

‘Not tamed,’ demurs Alex. ‘Just not so feisty and mental.’

Or perhaps Amy Winehouse has simply learnt how to overcome her demons by first of all, externalising them, and then by writing thumpingly therapeutic songs about them.

‘It is a kind of therapy,’ she agrees. ‘Sometimes I can’t feel good about a situation until I’ve got something good out of it, like a song. A lot of people don’t have an outlet like that. That’s why a lot of people are messed up or attention seekers or on drugs.’

On the stridently soulful, blisteringly honest Back To Basics, the ‘situations’ range from the painful to the comedic. Addicted, despite the heavy title, arose out of a petty domestic squabble.

‘You know when you have a best friend, you’d lay on the train tracks for her, you’d give her your last spliff? Well I used to live with my best friend, but her boyfriend used to come round. I came home one time, I’d been away travelling and I knew I had my last spliff. I went to my little box and it was empty so I shouted to my flatmate, “did you smoke my last spliff?” And she looked at me like I’d just shat on the floor. She goes to me, “I would never smoke your last spliff…” It was her boyfriend. So,’ Winehouse declares forcefully, ‘[the song] was basically me saying how you might do anything for your best friend, but that doesn’t apply to her boyfriend if he wants to smoke your last spliff.’

The sassy, sinuous Me And Mr Jones, with it’s classic opening line (“what kind of fuckery is this, you made me miss the Slick Rick gig”) also had ‘ordinary’ beginnings.

‘I’m a massive Nas fan – and weirdly, me and Alex both share a birthday with Nas. I had this friend who worked for a record  company and we used to get each tickets for gigs. He couldn’t sort me out for Slick Rick – I was like, that’s cool, I love Slick Rick but I’m not gonna die over it. But when he didn’t get me into a Nas show, I was really annoyed. It’s about the demise of a nice dynamic in a relationship with a friend. I liked the idea of someone annoying you to the point where you think, “you know what, I don’t like you so much that I’ll forgive you for not getting me into a Nas gig.”’

Winehouse, clearly, is not a lady to be messed with, which goes a long way to explaining why Back To Basics is such an impassioned and compelling listen. But even her most uncompromising rants are a touch tongue-in-cheek twist. And even her inner problems, once forced into daylight and into song, become something else entirely. Something positive.

Take Rehab, the first single from Back To Basics and already one of the defining songs of modern times. Winehouse came up with the song while working in New York with hot young producer Mark Ronson (Lily Allen, Robbie Williams, Christina Aguilera).

‘Mark and I are really good at making music that we love,’ she says enthusiastically of the young English-born DJ-turned-studio-wizard. ‘We were quite keen to impress each from the off. We’re just a pair of geeks basically.’

The song that would become Rehab began one lunchtime. ‘Mark and were talking form the pool room to the studio, and I just sang the hook out of nowhere, just as a random thing – I hadn’t written the song yet.’ That hook – “they tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no” – is a reference to an attempt by Winehouse’s former manager to make her professional help to deal with her drinking.

‘Mark is one of those people that makes me hyperactive ‘cause he’s as crazy as me. And I just sang that line out loud and he laughed and said, “who’s that?” I said, “I just made it up – and I could go and write a whole song like that.”’

And she did. The result: one of the most life-affirming pop songs around. But for all the sounds of positivity that, ultimately, abound on the bold, bright Back To Basics, might Winehouse write happier lyrics next time? Surely with the success of the album – Winehouse-mania is also taking off in America, and she was recently crowned ‘Queen of the Brits’ at the UK’s pre-eminent music awards ceremony – she’s all sorted out now? She’s even quit smoking and is a regular at the gym.

‘I dunno,’ Winehouse says with a shrug. ‘There will always be things to be…’ She stops and gathers her thoughts – this young singer-songwriter is considerably more thoughtful than tabloid reports of her hard-partying ways would have us believe. ‘However good things are going,’ she continues, ‘if you’re doing well in one aspect of your life, or if you’re really lucky to have someone’ – another loving glance at her boyfriend – ‘there are always other things in your life that are messed up. Family things, or personal things. The thing is, I don’t mean to be miserable. But I’m not the kind of person that writes songs about being blissfully happy. I like writing bittersweet songs.’

Google cache link ...
http://webcache.goog...n&ct=clnk&gl=us

 

Kind of odd that this was on a Universal Music site and they kept calling the Album 'Back To Basics'


  • dykehaze, HelloSailor and Fierce like this
Amy, if you are up there listening, thank you for sharing the incredible soundtracks of your life ...

#2 HelloSailor

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Posted 25 January 2015 - 10:24 AM

I loved her Back to Basics album!  :P



#3 amylove

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Posted 25 January 2015 - 04:29 PM

I guess they got her confused with Christina



#4 inwinoveritas

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Posted 25 January 2015 - 10:23 PM

yeah,  that's exactly, what i thought. But, despite the wrong LP title, interesting article, though!



#5 Mizzwanned

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Posted 06 February 2015 - 11:20 AM

Haha I loved reading this. I didn't know me and mr jones was about that




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