Read Online Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse - Free Book Online
Authors: Mitch Winehouse
Tags: Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, music, Composers & Musicians, Individual Composer & Musician
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went on. Maybe even needed to smoke a little cannabis, but I donât know for sure, because she wouldnât have done that in front of me. What I certainly didnât know and, with hindsight, perhaps I should have seen the warning sign for, was that she was starting to drink a lot more than was good for her, even then.
As a teenage girl sheâd suffered from a few self-esteem issues â what teenager doesnât? â but I really donât believe that was at the root of her stage fright; by the time she was performing regularly her self-esteem issues had gone. But 19 were right: she wasnât ready to go to America. Before that Amy needed to work hard on her act and it would take time. Talking to the audience and showing them she was enjoying herself came later, and even when it did, I donât think it was ever natural. To me, she always looked uncomfortable when she was doing it.
It wasnât easy to talk to her about a performance; after maybe a couple of days I could say things about what she was and wasnât doing, but I had to be careful. Amy wasnât so much strong-willed as cement-willed, and she did things her way.
As the promotional gigs continued, her management started to talk about a second album. There were still some good songs that hadnât been included on Frank . One in particular was âDo Me Goodâ. I told Amy that I thought it should go on the second album because it was fantastic, but she didnât think so and reminded me of something sheâd told me once before: âThat was then, Dad. Itâs not what Iâm about now. That was written about Chris and Iâm over it.â
All of Amyâs songs were about her experiences and by this time Chris was firmly in the past. With him no longer relevant to her life, that made the songs about him even less relevant.
Sheâd started writing a lot of new material, and there could easily have been an album between Frank and Back to Black â there were certainly enough songs. But Amy didnât want to bring out an album unless the songs had a personal meaning to her, and the ones sheâd written after Frank and before Back to Black didnât do it for her. She resisted the pressure from 19 to head back into the studio.
Amy and I often talked about her song writing. I asked her if she could write songs the way Cole Porter or Irving Berlin did. Those guys were âguns for hireâ when it came to churning out great songs. Irving Berlin could get up in the morning, look out of the window and ten minutes later heâd have written âIsnât This A Lovely Day?â. âCould you do that?â Iâd ask Amy.
âOf course I could, Dad. But I donât want to. All of my songs are autobiographical. They have to mean something to me .â
It was precisely because her songs were dragged up out of her soul that they were so powerful and passionate. The ones that went into Back to Black were about the deepest of emotions. And she went through hell to make it.
5
A PAIN IN SPAIN
During the summer of 2004, in the midst of her first taste of success, Amyâs regular drinking habits were worrying me â so many of her stories revolved around something happening to her while she was having a drink. Just how much, I never knew. On one occasion, she had drunk so much that she fell, banged her head and had to go to hospital. Her friend Lauren brought her from the hospital to my house in Kent and they stayed for three or four days. After they arrived, Amy went straight to sleep in her room and I called Nick Godwyn and Nick Shymansky. They came over immediately and we sat down to discuss what they were referring to as âAmyâs drinking problemâ.
We had a sense that Amy was using alcohol to loosen up before her gigs, but the others thought it was playing a more frequent role in her life. The subject of rehab came up â the first time that anyone had mentioned
As a teenage girl sheâd suffered from a few self-esteem issues â what teenager doesnât? â but I really donât believe that was at the root of her stage fright; by the time she was performing regularly her self-esteem issues had gone. But 19 were right: she wasnât ready to go to America. Before that Amy needed to work hard on her act and it would take time. Talking to the audience and showing them she was enjoying herself came later, and even when it did, I donât think it was ever natural. To me, she always looked uncomfortable when she was doing it.
It wasnât easy to talk to her about a performance; after maybe a couple of days I could say things about what she was and wasnât doing, but I had to be careful. Amy wasnât so much strong-willed as cement-willed, and she did things her way.
As the promotional gigs continued, her management started to talk about a second album. There were still some good songs that hadnât been included on Frank . One in particular was âDo Me Goodâ. I told Amy that I thought it should go on the second album because it was fantastic, but she didnât think so and reminded me of something sheâd told me once before: âThat was then, Dad. Itâs not what Iâm about now. That was written about Chris and Iâm over it.â
All of Amyâs songs were about her experiences and by this time Chris was firmly in the past. With him no longer relevant to her life, that made the songs about him even less relevant.
Sheâd started writing a lot of new material, and there could easily have been an album between Frank and Back to Black â there were certainly enough songs. But Amy didnât want to bring out an album unless the songs had a personal meaning to her, and the ones sheâd written after Frank and before Back to Black didnât do it for her. She resisted the pressure from 19 to head back into the studio.
Amy and I often talked about her song writing. I asked her if she could write songs the way Cole Porter or Irving Berlin did. Those guys were âguns for hireâ when it came to churning out great songs. Irving Berlin could get up in the morning, look out of the window and ten minutes later heâd have written âIsnât This A Lovely Day?â. âCould you do that?â Iâd ask Amy.
âOf course I could, Dad. But I donât want to. All of my songs are autobiographical. They have to mean something to me .â
It was precisely because her songs were dragged up out of her soul that they were so powerful and passionate. The ones that went into Back to Black were about the deepest of emotions. And she went through hell to make it.
5
A PAIN IN SPAIN
During the summer of 2004, in the midst of her first taste of success, Amyâs regular drinking habits were worrying me â so many of her stories revolved around something happening to her while she was having a drink. Just how much, I never knew. On one occasion, she had drunk so much that she fell, banged her head and had to go to hospital. Her friend Lauren brought her from the hospital to my house in Kent and they stayed for three or four days. After they arrived, Amy went straight to sleep in her room and I called Nick Godwyn and Nick Shymansky. They came over immediately and we sat down to discuss what they were referring to as âAmyâs drinking problemâ.
We had a sense that Amy was using alcohol to loosen up before her gigs, but the others thought it was playing a more frequent role in her life. The subject of rehab came up â the first time that anyone had mentioned
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