All language subtitles for Amy Winehouse - Cack To Black Story 2018

This programme contains
strong language

Said I'd never

I'd never lose my baby!

I always keep a bottle near, yeah

He said I just think you're
depressed

This, me, yeah, baby

And the rest...

You know, I wrote an album
that I'm really proud of about a

bad situation that I got through,
and that's pretty much where it

begins and ends for me.

The new album is called Back To
Black because it's about when

a relationship is over and how you
go back to where you were before, or

what you know best.

Amy, I'm just going to go get...

This album didn't
suddenly begin

its life in a recording session in
New York. We'll just find somewhere.

Amy was living and experiencing
these songs for quite some

time before.

I'd say the biggest thread between
Amy on album one, Frank,

and Amy on album two was
her passion for music.

..call him Mister Magic.

You know, she was 19.

Her idea of success

was about the
first record being heard and

her record being welcomed
and respected.

My way of managing Amy in the early
days was that she needed to

be stimulated, that was very much
part of her personality,

she was so bright. And then humour.

I knew how to make her laugh,
she knew how to make me laugh.

I always tried to make it fun and
would bring out the best in her.

It was an amazing period of her
life, I know that she was really,

really happy around that period.

She wanted to be a roller waitress
on roller skates,

she wanted to be a journalist,
she wanted to save cats.

But music, you know, she never went,
"Oh, I want to be famous,

"I want to be a star."
Music was just part of who she is.

She was just Amy, which was loud,
funny.

She'll have you

laughing on the floor without even
knowing it, that's the funny thing,

she'd come up with these little
sayings and you'd just be like,

"What are you talking about?"

You know what,
yesterday this seemed like

the best salad in the world.
Today? Not so sure.

I was aware that she'd get

melancholic and depressed at times.

And I was as aware as you could be
at that age, you know, early 20s.

There was a very obvious sadness
at the end of,

really at the end of touring
for Frank.

Amy hid a lot of things from me.

She never wanted to look weak in my
eyes so, for example, when I saw

her cry for the first time,
it was a shock to me.

And I think, you know,

romance and love and failed
relationships and things that

could, when you talk about them,
sound quite small,

were huge to Amy.

There was a period of time before
Back To Black where for Amy wasn't

making music.

My hair's gone flat!

I felt so helpless

What could I do?

Remembering all the things...

I remember she went to America to
make Back To Black.

It was about going to the best
people in the best environment.

And she had to jump on the plane and
go to America and be on the

ground in Miami, in New York,
making that record.

She came to New York, I met her.

And she had a few of these songs,

she wrote Back To Black and Rehab
within the three days that we were

at my place on Mercer Street.

It's probably the quickest out
of any record that I've ever

worked on.

We did five songs
in about four days.

I thought we did the tracking
in two days.

I remember the whole thing being
very quick. Yeah.

It was much faster than we normally
do records. Five songs.

So three days. I think it was
two days. Really? Wow.

Back To Black was actually

the first song I recorded with
the band.

You know, the most simple thing
you can say to an artist when

you're meeting them for the first
time is, "What kind

"of record do you want to make?"

And, um, she played me all this

60's girl group stuff and, like,
jukebox pop music and things like

The Shangri-Las and The Crystals,

and they were selling heartbreak

on this kind of, like, giant scale.

"The world is going to end if my
boyfriend doesn't take me back."

He stood there and asked me why

And all I could do was cry...

I'm quite influenced
by whatever I listen to.

Like, a lot of doo-wop, a lot
of 60's soul, Motown, girl groups.

When I had a bit of time off,
all I did was go and play pool

all day in the pub, I guess where
it's all jukebox, jukebox music.

I just was inspired by her,
the music she played me, what she

wanted to do, so I came up with
the piano idea for Back To Black.

And then I went to the drums,
and I'm really not much of a

drummer but I just did the
bom-bom-bom-tss, bom-bom,

put in a whole bunch of tambourine,
reverb on the tambourine

cos I thought that'd sound like the
kind of stuff that she liked.

I played her that the next day,
when she came to the studio at noon.

And she was instantly like,
"Oh, cool, like, I love it,"

like, "let me go write something
to it."

I didn't really question the
lyrics,

the only thing as a producer,
you're in-built to think that,

like, everything should rhyme
because that's, like, pop structure.

I remember when she sung me the
chorus of Back To Black, she had,

"We only said goodbye in words,
I died a thousand deaths..."

I was like, "Do you think that's
weird, should you change it?"

She looked at me, like, a little bit
more like dumbfounded,

like, "Why would I,
how, why would I change it?

"That is what came out."

This is honesty on a piece of paper.

When I sit down to write a song,
I don't think...

"This'll be good," I don't think,
"This sounds a bit like that.

"I should work that in and make that
sound like that. I don't think I

"should have that...
particular line in it," like,

I just sit down and just let it come
out, you know what I mean?

And then she went and she just laid
it down, the vocal.

He left no time to regret

Kept his dick wet

With his same old safe bet.

Mark, you know,

he was as excited about doing things
and as enthusiastic as me.

We got on really well.
Personally, as well.

You know, we're like brother
and sister.

Get on without my guy...

I suppose you need to be close
enough to someone to trust them.

But not so close that you can't
be like,

"Piss off,
that's a really bad idea."

I guess we had a similar background.

I had lived in New York a lot of my
life, but we were both English.

We were both Jewish. And then
there was also the humour thing.

She was just razor-sharp wit,

like, I was nowhere near
her level of delivering

one-liners and stuff, but as far as
making each other laugh and having

the same sense of humour, that was
definitely a kindred thing there.

No, back into your chorus beat
you were playing before,

before it went to the solo beat.

You don't have to drop now on that.

Working with Mark is great,
because he's known as a DJ.

DJs are in a...an interesting
position as far as, like, producing

records because they're used to
looking at crowds and sort of,

kind of like knowing what gets
people out of their seats,

what gets people going and
what doesn't get them going.

And Mark had the brilliant idea of
using the Dap-Kings, and they just

gave urgency and life

and movement and swagger

and depth and texture.

Putting the Dap-Kings on the record
made it a world beater.

She really loved how this felt
under her voice.

And then when we came here and
everybody actually played it,

it came to life 1,000-fold.

You went back to what you knew

So far removed

From all that we went through

And I tread a troubled track

My odds are stacked

I go back to black.

The big things in defining the sound
of this record was Tom Elmhirst.

And the mixes.

And I think because I was
so infatuated with the Daptone

sound I really liked it sounding
like legitimately like it

was just straight out of 1963.

And that's how we had it
until it went to Tom to mix it.

# I love you much...#

I didn't change the vocal that much.

There was some quite hard
frequencies in her voice

which I had to, sort of, manage.

And we also printed a reverb track
of hers.

So, just her vocal, dry, on its own.

He left no time to regret.

And then to add in some flavour...

Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet...

So that, sort of, immediately gives
it, for me, nostalgic sort of

sound that you would have heard more
in the '60s and '50s and so on.

And I remember going to the studio
and realising that he'd found

another 30, 40%, in terms
of, um, making the record sound

finished and giving it depth
and perspective

and Amy's vocals.

With his same old safe bet...

In the beginning,
I hated it.

And then I realised
what he'd done was kind of amazing,

he'd really brought something
that could have just sounded,

maybe a bit like a postcard to 1964
and made it sound thoroughly

modern and tough.

Get on without my guy

You went back to what you knew

So far removed

From all that we went through

And I tread a troubled track...

I write songs because I'm, like,
fucked up in the head,

and I need to put it on paper and
then write a song to sing it loads

to feel better about it and have
something good out of something bad.

We only said goodbye
with words...

Mark would say that

the songs just wrote themselves,
they really did.

You go back to her

And I go back to...

Black.

If you're going to make
an amazing record...

..go to the place
where the amazing people are.

Send the girl from Camden,
you send her to New York,

you send her to Miami.

Let her hang out with great people.

Mark, as close as he was to Amy,
Salaam was her go-to,

her father figure.

Salaam's songs were the other half
of Back To Black.

In between me and my man
is me and Mr Jones...

Me and Mr Jones.

In 2005,
I had just bought this house.

It was pretty much an empty space
and the first time I saw Amy,

she walks into the room for the
very first time and she walks

through the threshold
and she stands up and says,

"Ahh-ahh-ahh-whoo."

She's like,
"Can I record my vocals right here?"

So pretty much this became it.
We took this mic,

placed it here,

and this was the recording
of Back To Black in this room,

her vocals being here,
then I bought a piano and put the

piano in the room, I bought a drum
kit, put the drum kit in the room,

pushed the amps I had into the
room and I intentionally utilised

the room as an instrument
in the recording process.

I'm into old records,
I'm a hip-hop producer but I also

learned the engineering aspects
of getting instruments that sound

a particular way
and how to capture them.

Baa-da-da, da-da, da-da.

And the way I played the
piano and the bass,

it kind of kept the groove going
and the fun stuff but, you know,

just experimenting with instruments
that sound like break beats

and old music, ways of figuring out
ways of playing to capture it,

because still we were utilising
not even a full studio of equipment.

Some simple at-home tricks.

You know, there's this funny
story where we're recording

Me & Mr Jones and Amy was making tea
in the kitchen in the next room

and the kettle

went off halfway through the song
but we didn't necessarily

hear it, then as the song's going
off we just hear it run off and

then, like, what happened?

So when I listened back to the
vocal, halfway through the song,

the tea kettle starts and it's there
in the record but you never actually

hear it but it's like
a high frequency.

I might let you
make it up to me.

Tea kettle...

Who's playing Saturday?

You know, it's very English of Amy

to be making tea
and still keep the vocal take.

She made us dinner, right.
All the time.

Like, the whole time she was here.
Yeah. Like, giant meatballs.

I definitely remember the meatballs.

I feel like our involvement
in this Back To Black album is

actually a continuation initially of

what we were doing on the

first album, Frank.

In terms of the relationship,
we had fun with Amy, it's like a

conversation the whole time,
more so than the production.

She made everybody feel welcome,
Vince and Bruce and everything.

She met them and it was just like
she knew them for years.

She was definitely one of
those people,

she had that type of a spirit.

I think every time that I was with
Amy or that we saw Amy and we

were with Salaam, she was always
happy to be around us.

She'd come
in her ballerina slippers. Right!

And just kind of like hung out and
I think she just liked being here.

Or around Salaam, they had
a really great relationship.

I know I'm onto a good thing
with Salaam.

Salaam and I are very insular,

we work quite closely and together,
we don't talk to anyone else.

A lot of producers are quite like,
"How can we do that,"

or, "That's never been done before."

But they're just like, "Cool,
let's do this, let's do that."

And I helped push her creativity
out, it was like, "OK,

"you're pushing me. Can I say this?"
"Yes, you can say that."

"I can swear?" "Yes, you can swear."

You know, she was excited
about all those things.

So Me & Mr Jones pretty much started
as a song Fuckery,

that, you know, in between albums
Amy kept going in the studio.

She recorded a song, Fuckery,

and people in the label and
management were like,

"We'll never get on radio,
she's swearing again!"

You know, all they could focus
on was Fuckery.

So during the sessions,
I was like, "I like it,"

her kind of being influenced
by West Indian culture as well,

hearing them say, "Oh, this is
Fuckery, gwa'an," and this and that.

She picked it up and made a song
about it.

What kind of fuckery is this

You made me miss
the Slick Rig gig

Old Slick Rick

You thought I didn't love you
when I did

When I did

Can't believe you played me out
like that

No, you ain't worth guest list

Plus one of all them girls
you kissed

All them girls

You can't keep lying
to yourself like this

To yourself

Can't believe
you played yourself...

Most of the songs are a dig
at a past lover.

This whole song was her cussin' off
an ex-boyfriend.

Say I must get to the show
at Brixton next week,

and it's either you're going to let
me in or not.

But in the middle of it, you know,
the ending of the second verse,

"What type of fuckery are we, right
now you don't mean dick to me."

Very comedic.

Me & Mr Jones is about,
I used to go with this fella,

we were on and off a good six
or seven years, you know,

we were really good friends.

And because he worked for a record
company, whatever gigs I

couldn't get into, I'd be like,
"Yeah, G, let's go."

I remember Slick Rick was playing at
the Jazz and I was just like,

I rung him up, "Slick Rick, come
on," and he never got back to me.

OK, in the house.

What kind of fuckery is this?

A lot of the songs that Salaam wrote
with Amy that ended up

on Back To Black didn't sound
how Back To Black ended up.

Salaam's songs were very mid-tempo,

and very jazz
and very much like Frank.

With this first arrangement,
we were still in the Frank mind-set,

we didn't know where we were going
with the new record.

Wasn't the record
for Back To Black at that time,

because it was still developing.

The bass has a bit of a Latin feel,
but once again that was also me

hearing where the chords came from,
the chords also felt like it was

a little Brazilian bossa nova-ish
to me,

at the same time,
so it has a jazz, Latin,

you know, Cal Tjader vibe to it.

What kind of fuckery are you

Aside from Sammy
you're my best black Jew

Though I could swear
that we are through

I still wonder about the
things you do.

And so the transformation that
Salaam had to take his songs through

and for them to actually stick and
feel part of

the other half of Back To Black was
just a couple of stepping stones.

Me and Mr Jones.

Between Mark and Salaam,
they did a fantastic job.

What kind of fuckery is this?

You made me miss
the Slick Rick gig

And thought I didn't love you
when I did

When I did

Can't believe you played me out
like that.

Like a new...

When I think of her and how she
presented these songs to me, I

just picture her sitting in my old
studio on Mercer Street with

a nylon string guitar and just like
singing these songs and she

could barely sort of,
she'd be barely opening her lips and

like, this...this sound was
so heavy and full,

this growl or rasp or however
she was singing that certain song.

# Meet you downstairs in the bar
and hurt

Your rolled up sleeves
and your skull T-shirt

You said
what did you do with him today?

Sniffed me out like I was
Tanqueray.

I had the rhythm arrangement
as a sort of

Latin, like...

Meet you downstairs.
You know, and then the

rest of the rhythm tracks we decided
were so exciting I just knew

that that wasn't going to cut it
any more.

And I said, "Can anyone think
of anything?"

I don't think even 10 seconds went
by, and you guys were just like

"How about...
do-chu-do-chu-do-chu...?"

Why don't you come in,

why don't you come in when you play
your first two bars?

With that first beat,

and then when the bass comes in...

I was introduced to the Dap-Kings'
music and I was so blown away

by the way that they were able
to recreate this sound of,

like, 1964 in this way that was
like, I didn't even dream that you

could approximate that in 2006,
when we were making this record.

The insight Mark really had was
to really understand the value

of what we were already doing and
figure out how to incorporate that

with a pop artist and certain
pop sounds, you know.

Kind of put those things together.

I think a lot of people come in
here, including Mark, and tend to

look around at the equipment
or the gear.

You know, some people tend to
fetishise things.

I once heard Mark Ronson say that
we had, I think, to me, he told

me that we had magic linoleum
in the back room.

And I told him, "Man, there's
nothing magic here, there's just

"musicians that have a good sound
and know how to play together."

When you're making records that you
want people to have a sense

of what music really sounded like
back when it was

really made like this...

..and analogue,
as people will tell you,

is all about the warmth of the tape
and the organicness,

and running the instruments through
the desk and, um...

..you know, analogue is texture...
and crackle...and pop.

Then I called Amy at the end
of the day - she was in London -

to play it over, like, hold up
the phone, and I think...

Do you remember, I think I had
woken her up, she was like, "Ugh,"

I said, "Listen to this,
it's so fucking good."

And I played the demo of what you
guys had just tracked, 30 seconds,

I was like, "What do you think?"
It was like...

What Mark and Salaam had to do
to get that record out of her,

whether it was writing or whether
it was making sure that she

was happy with the style of record,

and with the type of artist that
Amy was, who was very forthright,

very brutal, could easily
demotivate a situation,

Back To Black came together
pretty easily.

Meet you downstairs in the bar

In your rolled-up sleeves

And your skull T-shirt

You say,
what did you do with him today?

# And snuff me out

Like I was Tanqueray

Cos you're my fella, my guy

Hand me your Stella and fly

By the time I'm out the door

# You're ten men down

I want you more...

When I sit down and I have a lot
of feelings that I can't deal with,

that's when I write a song.

You know, I've always written songs
at points in my life where

I don't know what to do,
except write a song, you know?

So I guess that's why they come out
kind of traumatised.

# You know that I'm no good. #

I think you do have to suffer for
your art, you know? I know I have.

And I know the reason it took me
three years to write...

..not to write it, but to get that
big chunk of my life that I could

then go back and write about -
the reason it took me that long

is cos I had to, you know, have
some peaks and troughs, definitely.

For you I was a flame

Love is a losing game

Five-storey fire as you came...

Her writing was very much
a page in her diary,

very much her being honest
about how she felt at the time.

I think the flipside of that is that
you can become TOO sensitive,

and everything can become
loud and painful.

The pain's all over the record.

Oh, what a mess

We made.

Amy writes from experiences,

and she writes about stories
of broken...of the broken heart,

or the intenseness of the love,

and that was her relationship
with Blake in Back To Black.

We just broke each other's hearts
repeatedly.

And I think we were very...
we sabotaged our own relationship

by trying to prove to ourselves
that we weren't in love with

each other, cos we were too young
to be that much in love,

it was like...

It was horrible. And, you know,
I wrote a whole album about it.

And the minute I started writing
about Blake,

the songs just wrote themselves.

And Amy lives our her experiences
and then writes about them.

So, when you heard
Love Is A Losing Game,

you kind of knew where
her headspace was.

This was, like, a chapter of her
life which had sort of closed and

she had moved past,

so she was able to deal with it
with this kind of like removed,

like, "Oh, this guy Blake, it was
great, you should have seen us,

"we used to get in these fights in
the kitchen and I'd be..." da-da-da,

But it was so, like,

she had so moved past it and she was
in such a good place when we met.

But there was one thing that she was
really adamant over, she definitely

didn't want to put any strings on
the record, cos to her,

someone did strings on her record
before

and she really didn't like it,

and it was, like...it was this
hammy, schlocky thing to her.

She was like, "It's just a waste of
time, no strings,"

and I was like, "What if we do it
and then you don't like it,

"then I'll pay for it,
so you don't even lose any money.

She was like, "It's shit, I don't
want fucking strings,

"leave it alone."
And so I kind of did...

I didn't really do it behind
her back, I just thought,

"Let me do some strings...
behind her back!

"Cos maybe she'll like it."

We mixed Love Is A Losing Game.

If there was ever one that she was
going to hear...

..the alarm bells were going
to go off, it was probably that.

I never played
Oh, what a mess we made...

We were just worried about whether
the strings were going to

worry Amy cos she mentioned not
wanting strings on the record,

so I do seem to remember me
and Mark being quite stressed out

about her hearing it.

She was listening to the mix
for the first time,

she was kind of like with her head
down on the desk like this,

the whole song, so I couldn't
really even read her reaction.

And then she just turned round
and she was, like, you know,

like, "I love it."

Love is a losing hand

Self-professed, profound

Till the chips were down

# Know you're a gambling man

Love is a losing hand.

I like writing about dynamics
between two people,

whether they're boyfriend
and girlfriend or, you know,

a man and his dog, your mum and
your dad, just the dynamics between,

you know, just relationships.

Over futile odds

And laughed at by the gods

And now the final frame

Love is a losing game.

This girl had something that the
greats do have,

and that's the ability to, you know,
to go to dungeons dark and grim,

to write those songs that sound like
they're heartbreak records

or...

..but are actually uplifting
moments, and, you know,

that takes a genius.

Mark created the sound,

which then I was able to kind
of call Salaam and say,

"You've got the direction,
they've nailed the style,

"you've got to figure out
how your songs fit on the record."

And he was like, "So how are you
going to make the songs we have

"already fit with those?" And I was
like, "Don't worry, I got it."

That's ultimately where we ended up
taking more of the record

into the '60s space more than the
jazz space of the previous record.

Remembering all the things
we'd been through...

The Ronettes had it all,
they had the atmosphere and look.

They're my favourite girl group
of all time.

She was different, you know,
like the Ronettes were in the '60s,

we were different,
and that's what drew people to us,

because we didn't have a hit record,

we came out there with confidence
and bad girls and everything.

She took it to a whole nother level.

I just like the sentiment of that
time, when you're in love...

You know, so much music nowadays is
like, "You don't know me,

"I don't need you," and all the
music then was kind of like,

"I don't care if you don't love me,
I will lie down in the road,

"pull my heart out and show it
to you." Do you know what I mean?

I don't think we bought Motown
records, but we knew what they
were, in different pieces,

and that kind of influenced
the sonic I was going for

in the drums, the sound,

where before I was just doing things
that were in jazz space, but now

I was trying to capture the sonic of
those '50s and '60s records.

Tears Dry was pretty much written
here at the house with her

sitting out in the back garden,

sometimes all the way out
in the field, with her guitar.

And even the lyrics of the hook,
"he walks away, the sun goes down,

"in this cool shade" was her sitting
underneath the shade in the

back of the house.

# And in your grey

In this blue shade

My tears dry on their own

All I can ever be to you
is the darkness that we knew

And this regret
I got accustomed to.

Tears Dry On Their Own is about...

I was with someone that I couldn't
really be with...

..and, er, I knew it wouldn't last.

But I think because I knew
it couldn't last, it was kind of

like saying, "I'm upset but I know
I'll get over it," I guess.

And then after she was gone
for the day,

I would sit down with the tracks
and really arrange and find

different ways to arrange
and keep it going.

And Amy trusted me with that,
and that was the best part of our

relationship, that she knew
that she could just write the words,

"OK, I'll sing it, and you're going
to find a way to bring it home."

Salaam and Amy were close,
and they were in sync musically.

They could sit and talk for hours
about anything, and, you know,

that came through in the music.

He was able to interpret what she
was saying with the instruments

and other stuff, and it was great.

While she was writing Tears Dry On
Their Own, I just happened to

stumble across the original files
of Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

As I listened to the instrumental of
Ain't No Mountain High Enough,

I just heard...

So I heard similarities
in the movement of the song,

but once again her song was
written...different tempo,

different space, I just heard it
going, "Wait a minute,

"this is playing this way,
that can play that way."

And Amy could not hear it for the
life of her!

So she was pissed at me.

"You know what, I'm going to try
cos it's you, but, like, for real?

"This is not going to happen,
like, this is way too fast.

"How can I sing at that fast?"

And through...
Fuck... Fucking...

So there was a lot of...

..mad at the world. Going like,
"You sing it yourself!"

I don't understand

Why do I stress the man

When there's so many
bigger things at hand?

And again,
we'll start from the beginning.

This isn't happening,

these were rarities as far as Amy
needing to do a vocal...

Fuck this.

It was basically frustration,
for the first time,

and only time,
in our creative process

was there frustration
with doing the vocals.

But when it finally got right,

it made all the difference
in the world.

We really went all the way in,

my guys went in on the brass
and on the horns.

It was nice to really go inside
those Motown tracks. Definitely.

And then really understand
what they were doing,

not just on the surface,
but right inside. Right.

And then what she wrote to it...

Because even, like, the term,
"tears dry on their own".

Yeah, like a vulnerability but
coupled with fearlessness. You know?

She went straight into the fire.

He walks away, the sun goes down

He takes the day but I'm grown

And in your way

In this blue shade

My tears dry on their own.

Her confidence in being able
to write a song the way she felt it

and not being forced to use
some type of formula was there,

so whether it was short or long,
was it good.

Salaam was one of the few people
that could speak to Amy and

communicate with her,
and her listen.

He was very good at coaxing stuff
out of her if she was having

a writer's block or if she wasn't
getting it.

And even though Mark was central to
Back To Black coming together, so

was Salaam, and I don't think

you could have had
one without the other.

He walks away, the sun goes down

He takes the day but I'm grown

And on your way, my deep shade

My tears dry.

When I write a song, I don't think,
"Verse, chorus, verse, chorus,"

it's important for me to get a whole
thought out, a complete thought.

And that's why I push myself
on the chords,

I push myself on the melody,
and the lyrics are probably the

hardest things, you know...
You have to challenge yourself.

I have to challenge myself.

I could never sing a lyric
that I wasn't quite sure about.

No, I am not ashamed.

But the guilt will kill you

If she don't first...

Messing with a married man.

I'll never love you like her.

I really started to feel the soul
in where she was going with this,

and that she was taking a dig
because she was hurt,

and it was like, "The guilt will
kill you if she don't first."

You know,
"I'll never love you like her."

Basically, "Your wife is really who
you should be with,

"so where are we going with this?

"We don't even have time to
make this work,

"when will we get the time to
just be friends?" And that's where

the Just Friends title took over
from "I've been drinking".

Cos it's almost like the drunk truth
came out.

It's never safe for us

Not even in the evening

Cos I've been drinking

Not in the morning
when your shit works...

Every song on that album,
with those producers she had,

they captured her sound,
they captured her look all in one,

and that's what was so amazing
to me about Amy.

She had a style of her own, a voice
of her own, it was so soulful.

For a white Jewish girl in the UK,
it was like, "What?!"

Though we need to find the time to
just do this shit together...

I was amazed when I first saw her
on television,

and I saw the beehive
and the eye make-up.

I was like, "Wow."

I knew that little lost-girl look,
and I saw it but nobody else

probably could see it,
because I went through it myself.

I'm quite an insecure person, I'm
very insecure about the way I look,

so, I mean, I'm a musician,
I'm not a model.

So I just remember turning up
at the BBC or places like that,

and the more insecure I felt,
the more I'd drink and...

And Tracey Trash, who does my hair,
I'd be like, "Bigger, bigger!"

And the more insecure I feel,
the bigger my hair has to be...

..I suppose.

When will we get to be
just friends

Just friends?

Something about each song in her
album Back To Black

including a little Motown I heard
in there, from the horns in there,

those producers were amazing.

My records on Back To Black compared
to the songs that Mark did

are kind of in a different type
of hang-out,

it's a little bit more seedy,
it's a different neighbourhood,

but it's still the same energy,
and I feel like the overall album,

it stands up,
but that's what made it -

it made it because it was an album,

it wasn't just
a collection of singles.

Salaam was hearing what Mark was
doing from the off,

so he was very much able to kind of
run alongside and make sure

what he was doing was in sync
with what Mark was doing.

And egos could have easily got in
the way.

Egos could have easily got in the
way,

but Salaam is not egotistical,
and nor is Mark.

Amy is.

When someone would look
at the records, they would go,

"How is this going to all come
together?"

It's Amy. Amy's the group.

This is all her.
This is all her thoughts.

She wrote 95% of that album
on guitar herself,

she's the main writer on the whole
album, and people would listen to it

and think she's just the voice -
no, she was the creator.

They tried to make me go to rehab
I said no, no, no...

I was in New York, walking down the
street with my friend, Mark Ronson,

who produced half the album, and...

..I said, as a joke,
purely as a joke, I sang the hook,

and he was laughing,
and he goes to me,

"Who's that?" He's like,
"Who IS that? That's funny."

And I was like, "I just made it up,
it's nothing, it's stupid."

She was telling a story, like,
"Oh, man, I used to be crazy,"

you know, she was telling me,

just with this period of looking
back, like a closed chapter, like,

"I used to be a little crazy,
I remember one time

"my family came over."
I was like, "What happened?"

"My dad tried to get me to go
to rehab or something.

"And I was like, 'No, no, no.'"

And I just couldn't help think
that that sounded like a great

hook for a song, you know?

And so I was like, "Do you want to
go back to the studio

"and work on something like that?"

It's a novelty song, I'm used to
writing songs that take me a year

to write about horrible, you know...
about getting your heart stamped on.

Cos it's such a silly little song,
I was like,

"We could do it in five minutes,
come on."

She just comes back with an acoustic
guitar and it's on her knee,

and she's just, like...it was sort
of a bit more like a 12-bar blues,

like a slow...

They tried to make me go
to rehab...

I said no

Yes, I've been black

When I come back, you'll know

I ain't got the time

And if my daddy thinks I'm fine

Tried to make me go to rehab

I won't go, go, go.

You know, kind of like the producer
inside me, thinking a little

bit in a pop sense, like,
"That's cool,

"but how about if we put a bit of
a beat behind it, sped it up,"

and she was really into, like,
that girl group pop stuff,

so we took the idea of going like...

Seemed pretty obvious to me.

# Oh, I'm going to lose my baby

So I always keep
a bottle near...

This vocal, this was the first one
that she ever sang,

this is the demo one,
so some of the words are different.

He said
I just think you're depressed

This, me, yeah, baby,
and the rest...

And that was it, and then I came and
wrote the Dap-Kings arrangement of

the song,
and it sort of brought it to life.

They tried to make me go to rehab

I said no, no, no

Yes, I've been black
but when I come back

You'll know, know, know

I ain't got the time

And if my daddy thinks I'm fine

He's tried to make me go to rehab

I won't go, go, go

I'd rather be

At home with Ray...

That story actually happened,
and I remember it happening,

and I remember her coming back from
holiday and I remember her managers

taking her to the middle of nowhere
and telling her that

she needs to go to rehab,
and I remember all of that,

and I remember turning up in
New York and Mark playing me that,

and thinking, "Oh, God, she didn't
just write a song about that!"

Certain songs definitely stick out
more than others,

and on this one, this record,
You Know I'm No Good

and Rehab, and Back To Black was
sort of more...

They have a traditional song
structure, if you like,

and the hook is really strong
and so on.

But it wasn't obvious that
all this would get on the radio.

And I was panicking cos I knew
it was amazing and I just

didn't want to miss the boat.

The way she told it was...genius.

Something that has a dark
underbelly,

she actually made people smile.

The man said, why

You think you here?

I said

I got no idea

I'm gonna

I'm gonna lose my baby

So I always keep

A bottle near here...

Sometimes I'd even go to her shows
and I found it a little

maddening cos I was like,

"We worked so hard and these are
the songs and people want to

"hear it this way," but everything
is slightly improvisational.

They tried to make me go
to rehab...

She would never sing a melody
the same way twice because it's

almost like, "Why would you do that?
I already did it that way."

Ooh, ooh, I just need
a friend...

I think some of the really great
singers, you see them live,

they'll never sing it the same way
they do on the record because,

like, it's almost like they're
too smart to do that,

it's like they need to constantly be
challenging and making it

interesting for themselves
to be able to play shows.

Hey, hey,
my daddy thinks I'm fine

Trying to make me go to rehab
I won't go, go, go.

Very quickly that song blew up,

and it was being played everywhere,

but Amy really did need to go
to rehab, and maybe if she did,

that song may have never come about,
and who knows,

fate may have been very different.

She told me that a few of the songs
were about this relationship

she had with this guy Blake,

and obviously speaking to her
about it more in-depth,

as I got to know her, gave me
a window into that time

that I obviously didn't know
that much about.

It's easy sometimes to forget, like,
how deep a place of sadness

and suffering and break-up that it
was, and knowing how intense their

relationship was, I imagine
that the break-up was insane.

Just hearing the song Wake Up Alone,
I was like,

"Oh, great. I'm sorry that was...

"..probably pretty tough,
but you got this thing out of it."

This is Wake Up Alone.

This one only took a few takes
cos it really was pretty basic.

I mean, that's just three tracks,
that's pretty much the whole song.

It's OK in the day
I'm staying busy...

You would never hear something
like that on the radio today.

People would just think that you're
crazy for doing something like that.

The arrangements in her melodies
really became a sort of

Trojan horse that slipped in all
the sadness through it, but you

don't sort of really notice.

I guess, just the little things like
these turns of phrases

that zip along, like, "I stay up,
clean the house,

"at least I'm not drinking.

"Run around, just so I don't have to
think about thinking,"

like, they just had such
a good metre to them.

I stay up, clean the house

At least I'm not drinking

Run around just so I don't have
to think about thinking...

I've been through times where I have
been so fucked up about situations

that I've had to just write
everything down,

even feelings that I don't want
to acknowledge,

especially feelings that I don't
want to acknowledge,

and things that I wish were
not true, when they are.

Just good because someone else might
hear that and be like,

"I'm not an idiot for feeling them
things, or I'm not weak for feeling

"them things, or I'm not a mug for
feeling them things about this man."

By the bed

Pour myself over him

Moon spilling in

And I wake up alone...

And really the artists that most
people connect with at the

end of the day are the ones
like Amy and Kurt Cobain -

the people that almost become these
martyr-like figures -

is really more because of the pain
that they expressed helps so

many people get through pain.

And I wake up alone

And I wake up alone.

The emotions that inspired a lot of
Amy's songs in Back To Black

had evolved over quite a long period
of time, maybe a couple of years.

This was before
she was really in a bad place,

but there were signs that things
weren't looking great.

The radio was on and it was at the
time when there was a lot

going on in Afghanistan.

..Taliban and Al-Qaeda units.

One of the sort of buzz words

that was almost thrown around
was "holy war".

She was clever,

she flipped what was happening at
the time into her conflict, her war.

Oh-lo-lo, oh-ohh...

Still figuring out the lyrics.

# Oh-oh, ohh-ohh

Oh-oh-oh, ohh, ohh-ohh

Oh-oh-oh, ohh, ohh-ohh

Put it in writing

But who you writing for?

Just us on the kitchen floor

Justice done reciting

My stomach standing still

Like you're reading my will...

That song really resonates,
there's something about it,

it's a little dark, but there is
something about it that just

kind of holds you in the moment
when you listen to it.

I think also very metaphoric. A lot
of metaphor. A lot of metaphors.

Triple entendres - beyond double.

Yeah, she would say something
and it wasn't blatant,

but it was very clear.

I never got the idea like she was
looking at ever having a hit record

or anything like that -

she was just trying to express
herself and tell her story.

There was a mission that she was on,

with this music.

Yeah.

You know, "If my man was fighting
an unholy war,

"I would be right beside him."

This is a Blake record, this is
watching a guy go through something

and not knowing how to, you know,

really figure out what to do
to save him.

There's something haunting about it.

I love the horns, and I was...

They almost sounded like
funny bugles,

they just sounded like
a sad bugle trumpet,

like, "We're not marching anywhere,
we're actually losing this war."

It brought something else out of it.

Even the...

It's like a marching band
that's going the wrong way,

so it's like the record really
captures something.

My man is fighting some kind of
holy war

I will stand beside you...

When I say I wrote Back To Black,
I went back to tunnels and

drinking too much and just...

..you know,
just being a massive depressive.

In spite of what
his scars say...

You have to see through people
and see through the world,

and you have to like yourself and
be able to spend time on your own,

be your own best friend
as well as your own worst enemy.

Just me

My dignity

And this guitar case...

The slower version of the song,
in what she was saying,

it got into her emotionally.

So, often, when Amy performed this,
she would perform the slow version

to start,
and then go on to the up-tempo.

My man is fighting
some unholy war

And I'll stand beside him

But who are you dying for?

I would have died too
I'd have liked to

If my man was fighting

Some unholy war

If my man was fighting...

When I saw her at one of her shows,

I knew she was slipping
cos I knew it from my own life,

I knew she was addicted to
the drugs and the alcohol.

And I could tell, I said,
"Please don't, I almost went there,

"don't go there."

It was the attention that
that record brought onto her that

was incredibly unhealthy for her.

Amy! Amy! Amy!

But I think it's the record that
completely turned her from

being a respected artist into

an international global-selling
superstar.

The beauty of it is that it reached
out to so many people.

Unfortunately with so many people
comes...a whole circus of madness.

Fans who don't know what's
going on behind,

go and see the shows and go,
"I was blown away by Amy tonight,"

but where I can read between the
lines and I'm then on tenterhooks,

that I was never able to relax.

Even when she performed on the
Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury,

and it was one of the biggest
audiences ever,

I think she was already on
the slippery slope.

Fame in that moment wasn't
a great thing for her.

But Amy got nominated
for...five Grammys.

Said I never

I never lose my baby...

But at that time, she was obviously
deep into the drugs,

and America took a very tough stance

and didn't want to let her
into the country.

We then had to figure out
what we were going to do.

And it was the first time
the Grammys had ever had

a satellite performance beamed in.

I said no, no, no...

That's how important Amy was
and what she was doing at the time.

You'll know, know, know

I ain't got the time

Hey, hey, my daddy thinks I'm fine

He's trying to make me go
to rehab...

..to present the Grammy
for Record Of The Year.

And the Grammy goes to
Amy Winehouse!

I wrote an album I'm proud of

but, in all honesty, you don't think
that if you write some songs that

get you over a bad situation
that that kind of thing,

like, awards and stuff like that,

you don't think that will come out
of it, ever.

So it's, it's...

..it is a nice surprise, it's not,
you know, something you expect.

It was lovely, though.

I'll go back to

I go back to

We always said goodbye in words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I'll go back to

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to black.