All the Rest Is Commentary: In Which I Go Back to Black, Yet Again

WHAT KIND OF fuckery is this? Why do I keep showing up as Amy Winehouse each October, when she is long since discredited as a human being?

I don't care what anybody thinks. Amy is my favorite singer. I've said why before, so I shan't repeat myself. But I've been thinking about Amy a lot lately.

When she says, infamously: "No, no, no"...

I'll go out on a rather shaky limb and say she has a point. If you are a complicated, sensitive, artistic sort like Amy, Twelve Step paint-by-numbers may not do the trick.

Which is not to say she doesn't need rehab; addiction is serious and requires serious care. In fact I'm sure she has gained from rehab, having now made various trips there. Just that her objections are legitimate. To be ham-fistedly analyzed or plied with Help is fine, but to be loved and understood is infinitely better. I've always called Blake an asshole, but maybe she thought she was--or actually was--getting those things from him. And if I'm blaming all the bloody mutual destruction on him, I might be missing the point. And fans are nice, but they are not friends.

(Ame, if you're looking for a man--and I don't know whether you are, as explained below--I still think you should give Weezy a call. You guys would understand each other.)

WHEN AMY is feeling blue (black), she'd rather hang out "with Ray [Charles]" or "Mr. [Donny] Hathaway." Which I totally get, because when I'm miserable, I'd rather hang out with Amy. (Or Lauryn, who is just as brilliant and screwed-up. Or Erykah, who has a self-deprecating sense of humor, and keeps it together, and therefore can be artistically prolific and also offer the most trustworthy advice.) Maybe in future I should explore the notion of real-life 'girlfriends.'

Eh. Maybe not.

GOOD ART works hard to tell the particular truth. Therapy is lazier, generic. When those record execs were telling her to go to rehab, that's a variation on You should really get some help. Which is an unkind thing people say when they are too pre-occupied, lazy, selfish, confused or scared to try to give you any portion of said help themselves.

I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
Have everyone think I'm on the mend

She doesn't want to let them off the hook. Doesn't want to be hauled off to get-better-quick-so-we-can-make-money-off-you camp. She would rather feel her pain in her own honest way. Amy goes black well. She makes the ugly beautiful, which a smart person taught me is the artist's cardinal skill.

AMY SAYS WE should just listen to her music, because that is the best of her. And from now on, I'm respecting her request. No more Google News searches. Just Back to Black. Her art is the only part of her we ever had any right to consume. We should listen to her sing and not gawk in sordid curiosity at her trainwreckiness. Because rubbernecking hurts if you are a sensitive soul like Amy; all that toughness and sarcasm is just an exoskeleton protecting her tender insides. Tattoos connote invincibility, but don't be fooled.

I bet she doesn't enjoy putting her biz in the streets, either. She probably covets privacy as much as the next person. I'd venture to guess that her personal life became public because her music and her drug-addled lunacy were the only adequate outlets she had for what was tearing her up inside.

Poor Amy. She just needs a friend. The hutch offer stands, girl. []

~BONUS~
FAVE QUOTES FROM MS. WINEHOUSE:

He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet

--"Back to Black"

I played myself again
Should just be my own best friend
Not fuck myself
In the head with
Stupid men

--"Tears Dry on Their Own"

If I was my heart
I'd rather be restless
Second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm
Breathless
Cause this ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me
And I cannot run now

--"Wake Up Alone"