Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Seeing the Movie Amy

Nick and I went to the Tuesday matinée showing of the documentary movie about Amy Winehouse last week. (See the trailer here.)

And then on Tuesday night, Amy was alive and well, as she vividly joined me in my dream. A recurrent feeling of sadness hounded me for the next couple of days.

I’d have to say that I’m somewhat of an easy crier — cue the time I had to explain my tears at work, when a former boss walked into my office just after I’d had a heart-breaking discussion with a co-worker/friend about her cat who had just died — but I’ve never cried over the death of a celebrity. Except for Amy Winehouse.

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard her voice. It was January 2007 and the song was “Rehab”. Like so many others I’m sure, I didn’t come near envisioning that it had been written and sung by a tiny London-born artist, who was barely out of her teens. I’d heard it played on an indie internet radio station and immediately wanted to hear it again. I bought the album Back to Black and came to know every single note on it, singing along from beginning to end.

I’ve always preferred female vocalists and Amy Winehouse was (is) certainly a favourite. I looked forward to hearing anything and everything that was yet to come from this phenom.

And then, as suddenly as she came to fame, as we all know, she died in her sleep of excessive alcohol consumption exasperating her weak heart, less than five years after the release of that album, at the age of 27.

So, without doubt, I had to go see this movie, in spite of knowing that it was going to be very sad.

↑ Nick got a new hat last week from Goorin’s Summer Sale ↑

↑ We’ve missed Sleater-Kinney too. ↑

↑ We walked through Rush Lane, on our way to the cinema at Yonge and Dundas ↑

↑ Soho Street. Our first home together was on the top two floors of this house furthest to the right. ↑

↑ Community piano at John Street and Stephanie ↑

The movie was so well done, with lots and lots of footage, showing every step of progression in Amy’s career. She was so spunky and funny. I especially loved seeing the video of her in the studio, in the booth recording the vocals to the title track on Back to Black.

I won’t give the movie away, but will say that both her father and husband were terrible influences on her, and from what is seen in the documentary, were key players in her demise. The media frenzy that accompanied her every move didn’t help either.