On Saturday, I was sitting on a deck in St. Andrews, drinking beer with my brother and Ben. I went to the bathroom and checked my phone on the way out. I wanted up-dates on the horror in Norway. There on my BBC Newsfeed came something unexpected, another deathtoll.
It does not show a lack of empathy, humanity, or awareness to still be affected by the death of one woman, a celebrity, when a major world tragedy occurred on the same day. I've seen too many self-righteous facebook statuses in the last few days to not mention that.
In this space, I am not equipped to write about a terrorist attack. I am barely able to write about the death of Amy Winehouse.
When I emerged out onto the deck again, I told Marty and Ben that she had died. I mentioned, eventually, how I was probably going to write something about her. Ben asked why.
I said "She was important."
"Was she?"
"To women of my generation, she was."
I couldn't articulate it at the time exactly what I meant, and maybe I still can't, but I mean it. For women of my generation, for thinking women, for women who love music and who identify with real emotion in it - Amy Winehouse was really fucking important. She wrote with honesty, with self-deprecation, and with such a precise style. Back to Black was so identifiably, unapologetically Winehouse, you know? And compared to other 2006 albums, it made so much more of an impact (inspiring a soul revival). She was this immense talent, made all the more rare by the fact that we could all see it slipping away from her right before our eyes.
As much we ate up the train-wreck, as much as we stayed glued to every erratic performance, we still thought deep down that someone with that much talent had to pull herself through - at least I did. I kept waiting for that next album. I kept hoping that the next gig would go smoothly.
I guess I kept hoping that our generation could be the one whose addicts survived.
Thank you, this was perfect.
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