I had never expected my reaction to be so strong, nor had I anticipated such news to come so soon. Those of you will recall how I had always hung her picture in my bathroom, drawings of her ladened my walls, original photos of her scattered throughout the many bedrooms I had, reminded me at all times that honesty is inspiring, its importance in our world to day is needed more than ever. My father had once presented me with a gift of a photo he had judged in a photographic competition last summer. It shows Amy immersed in performance, a cocktail umbrella protruding from her signature hair, her hand reaching out to a great white oblivion. My Dad said he had chosen it as winner because it conjured up a feeling within him-' its as if she's touching a void' I recall him saying. It was easy to brush her off as a mad and ignorant singer who got too much too young but those who have ever lived with the demons of never knowing how good you are, will know how easy it was to relate to Amy and how important her words were.
As someone who has suffered with low self esteem hidden behind a mask of performance and social circles, Amy's lyrics were the only I have ever heard from someone close to my own age that described so honestly this pain sometimes. Self esteem is something I feel is not touched upon so rawly in music today. We hear about what's wrong with world, with love, with gangs, with the economy...but how often do we hear a pop star coming out and singing about those feelings of undeservedness that many of us suffer from? Amy was a heroine addict, an alcoholic, bulemic, shocking and defiant of help throughout much of her life. But she died of low self esteem. You can hear it so plainly in her lyrics of Frank, and so hauntingly in those of Back to Black. Think of the happiest song you have ever heard Amy sing? She didn't write that. We were relieved to hear her sing of a fictional lady called Valerie for once, in her most upbeat classic of a Zutons cover that bore none of her trademark pain and regret.
I opened the pages of Now magazine in a shop I worked in over lunch 2 years ago. I will never forget the headline 'RAT FACED AMY LOOKS A SORRY MESS'. A photo pointed to a new belly that was emerging from her anorexic frame and another pointed to suggest she had undergone surgery to reduce the size of a protruding Jewish nose. Last week I picked up an issue of the same publication which read 'THE AMY ISSUE: DEDICATED TO ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING WOMEN OF OUR GENERATION. THE TRAGIC STORY OF AMY WINEHOUSE IN PICTURES'. I'm sorry-Are you having a laugh? The magazine that terrorized her repeatedly for her whole life in the limelight is hailing her now as this? Can someone give me any justification as to why these disgusting publications still exist and why people buy them?
I cannot promise that if I had these things written about me constantly on a public basis that I would never have gone down the same route as Amy. Can you? We need to stop these publications as fast as we have put Rupert Murdoch out of business. Please DO NOT read these magazines. They are bullies who sell people's self esteem to the wolves, who run their business on telling us how fat Martine McCutcheon is again, how close Britney is to suicide, how impotent Jennifer Anniston is, how Gaga is a freak, and how amazing Cheryl Cole's hair is looking.
We need to start looking at these publications as a form of bullying. Fame is unfortunately the price that often comes with distinct talent and luck but we cannot brush it off as something these people deserve or have asked for. People are dying and destroying themselves. Real people.
I had a funny encounter the other day. In an absolute flap running out of a studio I was working in I took a tumble over a man running out of his. When I was picked up I was apologised to profusely by a glistening man in green sequins and blue and pink eye make up. As I got to my feet I realised it was Noel Fielding and I quickly told him his apologies were accepted, smiled and ran. As I sat waiting on a bus to the Dalston Kingsland market to haggle for silk shirts, I was shocked -at how shocked I was that he was a real person. I realised that we often go about our lives and have a laugh at these people we consider 'entertainment value' but when they're knocking you down on the street and helping you to your feet, a different reality sets in. Wow they're not transparent or made of air brushing! They exist. They're real. I would never call someone a RAT in person so why is it okay that I read it in a publication and believe they deserve their fate as sparkle covered vermon?
I am not contesting that Amy's body was withdrawing from serious addiction. I am not buying into the fate of a 'Tragic singer'. I am merely asking people to stop supporting a dangerous and disgusting publication industry. Coping skills are hard to come by in life, coping skills in your twenties are even harder at times, when your trying to find your place in the world. We have seen a demise of some extremely important talent over the past few years. We need to support and nurture it rather than celebrate its laughing stock value and ask ourselves is it really just an inhonourable effort to make ourselves feel better?
NOW magazine and many others has again participated in the destroying of another person. They laughed at her uniqueness, celebrated her downfall and are glorifying her death now as tragic. Wake up. You don't need this bullshit in your life. Buy the publications that are credible, the ones that haven't lied, defied and hacked lives for our attention. You can judge a book by its cover, but the content is nothing but disrespectful tolerance of a society obsessed with downfall. Many people have described this event as 'expected' and 'not shocking'. Well let's see if we can change that next time a 27 year old dies in the limelight of public addiction? Let's not stand by and watch a public demise like we have so many, over the last few years. These publications deserve the same public downfall as we have seen happen The Daily Mail in recent weeks. People power still exists and all things are possible. Let's stop this dictatorship of celebrity trash culture by not participating in it any more.
Amy Winehouse inspired me growing up as a girl 3 years her junior. She presented me at seventeen with a new genre of music that I had never given consideration to before. She sang about everything I honestly felt when Girls Aloud were telling me about Something Kinda Ooh, Something Kinda Ooh Ooh Yeah. Amy told me how she struggled with liking herself too, about how she knew she was too hard on herself, how she didn't believe she deserved any of the good things . Her death envoked a sense of dread in me I had never experienced before. She had represented to me a young girl that wasn't afraid to tell us how she really felt about the world rather than merely selling us candy floss and a catchy chorus line. We had perhaps coped with it differently, but none the less experienced the issues she sang about wrapped in that cadence of jazz. Hearing it being described so beautifully gave me comfort that I wasn't alone, that many girls struggle with these feelings, our worries about the future, our pain of losing the ones we love, our regret for never having the confidence in telling that person how you really felt, our hopes, the moonlight, the simple things it all comes down to in life. I was truly inspired and became reliant on her music to comfort me. I grew more and more in denial of the seriousness of her condition as the years went on, always believing in a turning point when the music would flood through her veins again.
I realised for the first time in her death that this honesty found in her music is also fallible and any participation in its ruin should not be supported. I encourage all journalists, editors and photographers to realise the responsibility they have to me. I encourage all women to ask themselves do they really care about Sarah Harding's new secret diet? I encourage them to put a friend on Amy's face and ask themselves would they feel the same way about blood protruding from her heroin injected ballet pumps?
Celebrities are people who exist. Liam Gallagher passed me on the street last week getting head butted by cameras and foul jeering from the paps, Vivienne Westwood sits on a towel in Clapham Common on a Sunday with her husband, Damon Hill stands behind me in the queue at Tesco's with his eggs and bacon, Noel Fielding helps me to my feet when he clumsily dashes to his car to turn off the headlights he left on by mistake. Trash journalism is a form of bullying that needs to be cornered. We are feeding off negativity that has gone beyond our control.
I'm sorry you've gone Amy. I really miss you. Thank you for your beautiful lyrics, your haunting voice, for all the feelings and fears you told me you had too. You made me feel like a real person and I'm sad to think that maybe we forgot sometimes that you were too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY0wDr3Uqj8
