Ms. Destiny, 9 and 14 - Happy 30th Birthday, Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse would have turned 30 years old today.



I wrote a beautiful Amy Winehouse tribute post that I published on Sept. 10, 2012. Unfortunately, it used the old Pinterest codes and the old YouTube embedding format, and when I tried to update it, I destroyed it. That may be the first time in five years that I deleted a blog post, but my html knowledge is more basic than that required to fix the boo-boos.

So I had to start anew.

The first time I ever heard an Amy Winehouse song, I was at my small town's lgbtqia bar (sadly, now but a memory - you can read its elegy in "Gold Lipstick at the End of the Rainbow"). Someone sang "Rehab" at the karaoke bar. I thought it was an interesting song, but it wasn't love at first listen.



The songs that made me fall in love with Amy Winehouse's voice were "Me and Mr. Jones" and "You Know I'm No Good." Then I started reading From Here to Eternity, fell ass-backwards in love with the words of James Jones (it was my major obsession last year), and in my mind I linked "Me and Mr. Jones" with Mr. James Jones.



This is how my mind works. (See also: "Whistle")

This happened. And I haven't stopped listening to Amy since.



Jewish chicks and black eyeliner - a match made in ancient Egypt.



I think this is one of the loveliest songs Amy ever recorded.

I still haven't read Mitch Winehouse's book Amy, My Daughter. I think it would make me sad to read about Amy through the eyes of the dad who loved her so much. I'm sure he shares lots of happy memories of her, though. Not just the tough stuff.

If you've ever loved an addict, then you know how you can regard them with a mixture of love, anger and loathing - but you still love them.