If I had to choose a signature song for her, it wouldn't be the cheeky Ray Charles-indebted "Rehab," or the heart-wrenching addiction tale (disguised as torch song) "Back to Black." I would choose the lesser known album closer, "He Can Only Hold Her."
To the casual listener, the vintage Stax-flavored track (which features members of the Dap-Kings, replaying portions of the obscure soul nugget "(My Girl) She's A Fox" (1966) by The Icemen*) might seem to be about Winehouse feeling torn between two men: she's pining for an old flame, and neither she nor her current boyfriend really know how to quell those feelings. However, if you put the song in the larger context of the album and look at the narrative arc (she starts out by refusing rehab and then, along the way, confesses that she always falls back on bad habits whenever she gets her heart broken), it becomes clear that this song is about addiction.
Unlike every other song on the album, she sings "He Can Only Hold Her" in third person. Curiously, she's able to acknowledge for the first time on the album that she's not merely a victim of circumstance but an active participant. As an objective observer of her own situation, she finally realizes that clever quips, sex, and/or her old Donny Hathaway records aren't going to save her. But the truly heartbreaking thing is, she doesn't know how to save herself.
At the risk of sounding completely morbid, she wrote her own obituary.
The day she passed away in 2011, I listened to this track over 100 times, disappointed that she had become yet another entertainer to die before age 30. As a fan, I'd sincerely hoped that, by recognizing her demons, she could exorcise them. But that simply wasn't the case in the end. Still, she left behind a solid (albeit brief) legacy of pithy, soulful music that will surely endure.
(*If you take a listen to the linked track, you might recognize the guitar playing of the late Jimi Hendrix. The single was recorded about a year before Are You Experienced? would drop.)
To the casual listener, the vintage Stax-flavored track (which features members of the Dap-Kings, replaying portions of the obscure soul nugget "(My Girl) She's A Fox" (1966) by The Icemen*) might seem to be about Winehouse feeling torn between two men: she's pining for an old flame, and neither she nor her current boyfriend really know how to quell those feelings. However, if you put the song in the larger context of the album and look at the narrative arc (she starts out by refusing rehab and then, along the way, confesses that she always falls back on bad habits whenever she gets her heart broken), it becomes clear that this song is about addiction.
Unlike every other song on the album, she sings "He Can Only Hold Her" in third person. Curiously, she's able to acknowledge for the first time on the album that she's not merely a victim of circumstance but an active participant. As an objective observer of her own situation, she finally realizes that clever quips, sex, and/or her old Donny Hathaway records aren't going to save her. But the truly heartbreaking thing is, she doesn't know how to save herself.
At the risk of sounding completely morbid, she wrote her own obituary.
The day she passed away in 2011, I listened to this track over 100 times, disappointed that she had become yet another entertainer to die before age 30. As a fan, I'd sincerely hoped that, by recognizing her demons, she could exorcise them. But that simply wasn't the case in the end. Still, she left behind a solid (albeit brief) legacy of pithy, soulful music that will surely endure.
(*If you take a listen to the linked track, you might recognize the guitar playing of the late Jimi Hendrix. The single was recorded about a year before Are You Experienced? would drop.)
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