"Tears Dry On Their Own" by Amy Winehouse [ Amy Lingafelter ]

I worried that confessing to still having an in-my-head version of my teenaged notebooks of song lyrics would seem less than adult or academic.  Even worse, I worried that it would seem girlish.

Girlish.  And some of the attendant adjectives that might accompany that word in your head: emotional, messy, sensitive, vulnerable, too much, just too much.

Then I saw Amy (2015) the excellent documentary by Asif Kapadia.  It’s been written about much more eloquently and in depth around the internet this summer, including here and here.  I liked it more than Anthony Lane, but it left me troubled for some of the same reasons.  My favorite part of the movie ended up being something I hated initially.  You see Amy Winehouse scribbling out her lyrics in her own notebooks.  She writes and rewrites, crosses out and erases, even records “Back to Black” reading from her notebook. But Kapadia chose to float the lyrics over the screen while songs are being performed or played, and as I sat in the theater, my initial reaction was negative- it seemed so girlish. 

As if girlishness somehow diminished the bright and beautiful art that Amy Winehouse made.

Then I went home and actually read the lyrics to ”Wake Up Alone”. And “Me & Mr. Jones”.  And “Tears Dry on Their Own”.

 

So we are history, the shadow covers me, the sky above a blaze that only lovers see...

There is nothing wrong with the girlish notebook of song lyrics that produced those lines.   

In fact, thank goodness she had the notebook with her to begin with (the documentary produced so much obsessive revisiting for me, “Back to Black” is now firmly on my Top Ten albums list).

And thank goodness for emotions, messiness, sensitivity, and vulnerability.  They are not traits one needs to apologize for.  They have produced much greatness in this world.  And girls and women don’t need to do any more apologizing than they already do.

And thank goodness for my own notebooks of song lyrics and poem fragments and the happiness they brought me. The sky above a blaze that only lovers see...

 

Comments

[Amy Lingafelter]

The documentary sent me on a serious Amy Winehouse internet journey this summer, and I feel compelled to include a link to this performance. Shame on the Isle of Wight videographers for fetishizing her thinness the way so much of the media did. Click on it and minimize it if that part makes you mad, but do listen. Her singing on "Back to Black" is just about some of the best singing you'll ever hear: https://youtu.be/gUjMNyfu_ak