Amy

I wrote this about Amy in 2008. I wish the story had a different ending.

Tortured soul

I’m slow on the uptake. Anyone who knows me will vouch for my inability to move with the times. Hence, only recently taking possession of an iPod, which has predictably revolutionised my listening life and means I’m now down wiv da kids choons-wise. Well, sort of. Because I’ve only just discovered Back To Black. You know, Amy Winehouse’s mega-charting album that’s had major crit ticks, a fruitful commercial yield and garnered its creator a clutch of gongs. Like I said, tortoise-slow. A shame, really, because the album is a visceral yell from the pit of a broken heart, like Winehouse has taken her pain and insecurities and smeared them over a mixing desk.

Which got me thinking about the age-old link between suffering and creativity. Since culture crawled out of the sludge we’ve questioned whether the arts would even exist without people who’ve been through the emotional Magimix, that misery makes compelling creative company. The problem with equating pain with artistic genius is we’re essentially glamorising self-harm. Mostly, tabloidese ‘demons’ is simply code for addiction and the last thing any addict needs is the get-out-of-gaol-free creative card. If you’re an addict, what you need is much-talked-about tough love. I don’t say that to be zero tolerant. I say it because addiction is a terminal disease that kills people and if anyone is in any doubt about that look at Amy Winehouse. Just look.

If you’re genuinely talented, your talent will out and all the torture will do is, well, torture you. Pain is brutal, nullifying and ugly. It’s blazingly obvious, isn’t it? Pain doesn’t free you to be creative, it entraps you to be self-destructive and ultimately only ever leads to the dying of the light.

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