Amy Winehouse - 'Love Is A Losing Game'
Do you believe that music has power? Are you the kind of person who thinks that listening to doomy songs all day long will make you a doomy person, for example? Or perhaps you go a bit further and believe that there are some arrangements of sound and rhythm which carry with them a great big dollop of psychic trauma? Or maybe even that some music is just plain haunted? Well, if you do, the continuing saga of The Life And Times Of Amy Winehouse must surely have given you a certain sense of satisfaction.
I mean listen to this song. It actually SOUNDS haunted. If music has any power at all, it's the ability to poke the most hidden, cobwebbed corner of your emotions, and then make pretty shapes with the dust clouds. Small wonder that so many people treat their favourite song as a kind of refuge from the painful things in their life. It's the friend you never have to explain yourself to, and it won't let you down just when you need it most.
Of course, Amy Winehouse possibly knows more about this than most. Throughout 2007, a year which you'd forgive her for wanting to put behind her, she has attempted to keep her career on track by performing her songs, going to award ceremonies and generally acting as if nothing is amiss, despite clearly not being in any fit shape to put voice to microphone.
Now, you can argue about whose fault it is that she's in such a state, but come on, you've heard 'Back To Black', right? She told us she was trouble, and now we know that she's no good. So it's hardly a surprise when events conspire to bring her worst opinions of herself (the ones she sets to music) to grisly life.
And this song, like all her other dark-as-treacle, Amy=Bad songs, were written and recorded BEFORE she became Tabloid Druggie No.2 (after Pete Doherty). Although this one scores extra points for being the least defiant, most defeated song in her impressively bleak canon. Eerie then, that it should be released while her husband is languishing in a cell, and after she's cancelled all tour commitments because she can't cope without him by her side.
You'd love to be able to concentrate just on the music, and put the real life stuff to one side (something which is astonishingly easy to do while listening to her sing, actually). But it's not that easy. This is a perfect soundtrack to the moment when your life falls apart, and you can't deny that Amy has been doing an amazing impression of a girl in that exact situation for most of the last year.
So, what do we want, people? A better, fitter, happier Amy Winehouse or more records like 'Back To Black'? Because I'm fairly sure we can't have both. Once you mess with dark musical forces, it's only a matter of time before those same dark forces start to mess with you.
Now, where did I put that Lazytown CD?
PS: While pottering about on the internet, I came upon , written in response to a claim from the United Nations that Amy is glamorizing drug use.
'Glamorizing'? As in 'encouraging people to think it is glamorous? Amy WINEHOUSE???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*deep breath*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (repeat forever)
Download: Out now
CD Released: December 10th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
You can say a lot about Tabloid Druggie No.2 (wonderful nickname btw), but she makes very good music. Wonderful song!
omg!
what a song...
I mean, what song is too short??
So far, I think this is the only one...
Fine, I really really don't like her...
I almost hate her, but she IS human,
and that IS probably one of the greatest song ever...
so I better say no more and listen to it one more time..
or maybe a thousand more times
:-)
Wow this is pretty deep.(not really) I personally like Amy Winehouse, she's cool she knows who she is and what she is and I like that sure she has a little problem (rehab) but hey we all got problems!!!!!!!!! (and her music rocks!!!)
hmmm, not quite sure about yr reasoning here fraser. as you point out back to black was recorded before all this current nonsense, so i'm not sure that fitter, happier, more productive amy couldn't continue to produce darker material, it's a bit of an old rock and roll cliche that you have to be effed up to write/perform affecting songs isn't it?
I hate Amy but I have to say.. this song is growing on me!
i agree with the above. i've been mentioning for a while that its a shame that the inspirational and creative artists are also the most broken ones....
I love Amy,
she is absolutely amazing,
not just her voice, but the raw emotion she puts into her lyrics,
i can never relate to her and i don't pretend to, unlike some people who say 'zomg, i feel just like she does', anyway, my point is that, although i haven't been through those same things Amy has, her music helps us understand her, the lyrics are so deep and we have to delve deep into them to find the true meanings, which turn out to be nothing more pain, yet theyare still amazingly beautiful
On the note of do i want Amyto get better?
the answer would be, no, i don't want her to fully recover, her music will suffer from it, although saying that, if she got 100% better tomorrow, you can bet she'll have a lot to write about concerning 2007