| Amy Winehouse – In My Bed Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This was the first Amy Winehouse song I ever heard, and I was hooked! It's just SO sultry! I love how the intro music almost takes you to an exotic fantasy world... but then Amy sends you plummeting back down to gritty Earth with her amazingly candid lyrics! I love the way some of her lyrics are almost conversational and reflective of real interactions she's had in her life, and I love her sharp tongue even more! I'm probably way too polite to ever speak to any lover of mine that way, current OR ex, ('cause I'm Canadian, and some stereotypes exist for a reason), but I just love the way she is so unabashed (and sometimes insulting) in her attitudes towards her male companions, in this song and a few others ('Stronger Than Me' being the most prominent example I can think of right now). She had some real brass balls, I tells ya. All that being said, there is still a small glimmer of compassion here. Yes, she is looking down on him a little bit for being such a "chick" and not being able to enjoy a bit of ex-sex without getting all sentimental ("The only time I hold your hand is to get the angle right" is a genius line), but she also acknowledges that she probably shouldn't be doing this and feels bad about it, because she knows it hurts him. It sounds like she has been hooking up with him post-breakup for a while now, and while he has always been up-front about the fact that being with her physically makes him ache to be with her again, she just can't bring herself to reciprocate those feelings ("Wish I could say it breaks my heart"...) Still, she continues to give him false hope because she has an itch and he's the most readily-available guy to scratch it. She doesn't want him back, but she can't be bothered to put herself out there and go through all the initial anxiety and uncertainty of a new relationship, so she takes the easier route of going back to something easily attainable and familiar to satisfy her sexual needs. |
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| Amy Winehouse – Like Smoke Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Ulmanor, "Like smoke, I hung around and be your balance" is incorrect (and doesn't make sense, grammatically), but you are right when you say that the lyric is "Like smoke, I hang around in the unbalance" rather than "unbalanceD", which seems to be the most common mix-up here. I fixed that and made some other edits to the lyrics on this page (still pending approval) so hopefully that will be fixed soon. My interpretation of this song (specifically, the chorus) is that she has developed more romantic feelings for a guy with whom she has a casual, sexual relationship. She knows that she's one of his many 'lady friends' and that he's too cool to settle down with her, but she doesn't want to break it off, so she's trying not to blow it with him by getting too clingy or revealing her true feelings and scaring him off... "I never wanted you to be my man, I just need your company" sounds to me like she's being a bit defensive, possibly after being accused of trying to tie him down or worm her way into a 'girlfriend' position, while "Don't wanna get dependent on your time or who you spend it on and lose the way you look at me" sounds more like her inner monologue as she's trying to remind herself to be cool and not let him catch on that she's become attached to him. I believe she's using a play on words with the phrase "hanging in the balance", which means to be reliant on some external factor that you can't control in order to survive or succeed (or in Amy's case, get what she wants)... She's holding her breath waiting for him to come around and fulfill her secret wish to be his one and only, even though she's pretty sure it won't happen. There is very little chance that she'll get what she wants, but she's choosing to stay anyway, because she thinks that breaking it off completely would be worse than being strung along (because in that scenario, at least she still gets to spend time with him). She's hanging in the UNbalance. Just my thoughts. Also, Nas kind of echoes that idea when he says "Like smoke, girls linger 'round a player"... he's a bit cocky and he knows that he can keep girls on the hook, getting what he wants from them sexually without having to commit, and that they'll keep coming back for more because his lovin' is just THAT good. lol. It's kind of true... a lot of women can't resist trying to tame the wild ones, even though they know all too well that they'll get scratched up a bit in the struggle! |
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| Amy Winehouse – Best Friends, Right? Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| sleepingwithlions, I think 'dro is the correct lyric. It's short for 'hydro', one of the slang names given to weed that is grown indoors with the use of hydroponic lights. Amy uses the lyric in another one of her songs from Back to Black, called Addicted ('I'd rather you leave him than leave him my 'dro', singing about her friend/roommate's boyfriend who is always mooching off of her weed stash) | |
| Amy Winehouse – Tears Dry On Their Own Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This is one of my all-time favourites, by far! I love the use of sampling in this song (from the Marvin Gaye | |
| Amy Winehouse – Take The Box Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This is the most gut-wrenching breakup song I've ever heard! Seems most people here share my favourite line of the song... the way her voice sounds when she says "But you made me cry, where's my kiss goodbye? ... I think I love you" brings tears to my eyes almost every time I listen to this track. I don't think the debated line in the chorus has anything to do with a gay lover or her dog. Frank is a reference to a Frank Sinatra CD he bought for her, full of songs that held special meaning in their relationship. I'm pretty sure I actually read that somewhere as coming from Amy herself, but I can't confirm that for sure. In any case, why on earth would she put her dog in a box full of relationship memorabilia to be thrown away or given back to her ex? That's just silly! Even if Frank is the name of her dog that appears on the album cover, it's a reasonably large dog -- it'd have to be a pretty big box! lol As for the gay-lover theory, I don't think that the line 'I punched all the buzzers, hoping he would be there' is correct... I think she says 'hoping YOU would be there', since in the rest of the song, everything she says is directed at the guy and not as if she's speaking about him to a third person. It wouldn't really make sense for her to suddenly interrupt her thoughts in the chorus about what she's going to put in the box to mention that her now-ex is in a room with another man... it just doesn't fit. Frank is clearly a nickname given to an inanimate object that he gave her as a gift (that she is now returning), even if it's not a Frank Sinatra CD. |
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| Amy Winehouse – Tears Dry On Their Own Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This is one of my all-time favourites, by far! I love the use of sampling in this song (from the Marvin Gaye | |
| Amy Winehouse – Wake Up Alone Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I agree with Deformed_Roach. Amy was well-known for her problems with substance abuse, particularly drinking, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every single one of her songs ties in with her involvement with drugs and alcohol. Yes, she wrote a few songs that were specifically about alcoholism and smoking pot, but the lyrics of those were very frank (no pun intended), so it seems unlikely to me that she would go through a whole lot of trouble to use a bunch of poetic metaphors on the subject in a song that's about heartbreak and not her demons of addiction. Incidentally, because her most well-known song is Rehab, some of the comments I've seen on her songs remind me of people who think that every other Led Zeppelin song is about The Lord of the Rings because of the overt references to it in the lyrics of The Battle of Evermore... but that's a whole other thread of discussion. ;) As for this song, I'm a bit on the fence about it. While I can definitely see how some of the lyrics with liquid imagery could point to 'drowning her sorrows' by means of binge drinking, I still think that she was just using poetic symbolism and decided to use a bit of repetition with the idea of drowning / flooding / being soaked as a metaphor for the feelings of heartbreak that are consuming her. She also seems to use it to describe her dreams and memories of making love to him ("Pour myself over him, moon spilling in" definitely sounds like a snapshot of an intimate moment, as does "... I drip for him tonight, Drowning in me, we bathe under blue light") I LOVE mushroomfat's interpretation of the line "He swims in my eyes by the bed" (she's looking at a photo of him at her bedside and crying)... it really makes the most sense of all the other theories, and what an achingly beautiful way to phrase such a thing! Then again, if the lyric is actually "He swims in my ICE by the bed", then it seems very likely that she is in fact making references to alcoholism throughout the song. I just hesitate to buy into that theory because I think most people jump to that conclusion because of Amy's highly publicized drinking problems. I really need to see if I can find the official lyrics (perhaps in the liner notes?), because a lot of the ones I find online seem inaccurate, and not just the ones for this song. |
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| Amy Winehouse – You Know I'm No Good Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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What a smart spin on such a commonly-used lyrical topic! You'd expect most songs about confessions of infidelity to lead to a break-up and the cheater begging for forgiveness... but Amy takes it in a different direction! She feels regret and anguish over the fact that she was untrue to her man, but what hurts her even more is that he doesn't really care or doesn't seem hurt or surprised. Hence why she says "I cheated myself" rather than "I cheated (on) YOU"... she's the only one who's suffering the consequences of her misdeeds, because she truly loves him and doesn't want to cheat, but can't help repeating her bad habits. I do think the line is "Who truly stuck the knife in first?" (or maybe "YOU truly stuck the knife in first"), as if she's making a bleak attempt to defend her actions by saying "Yeah, I cheated, but maybe I wouldn't if you showed me that you care more often", because he's clearly not possessive of her or concerned about what she's doing when he's not around. Even though she realizes that she's responsible for her wrong-doing, she can't help but feel resentful of the fact that he knew she had a tendency to stray and did nothing to stop it ("I told you I was trouble..."). He's very nonchalant about it, and even brushes it off with a joke (as described in the first verse and later on when he says "Were we married?" to dismiss her apology). I'm not so sure about the line "Then you notice likkle carpet burns"... I know that 'likkle' is patois for 'little', but it just seems random and out of context here (except for the fact that she mentions Jamaica in the same verse, but that's a bit of a stretch). I always thought she was just saying "Then you notice the c-carpet burns", like she's just stuttering the beginning of the word for stylistic emphasis. But I can't confirm that, since the official lyrics (according to Amy) don't seem to be published anywhere online. I'm gonna have to check the liner notes! Anyway, great song! I'm glad that this song was almost as big a hit off of Back to Black as Rehab was, since most people don't have a chance to realize her amazing lyrical songwriting abilities just from listening to Rehab. |
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| Amy Winehouse – You Sent Me Flying Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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It had never even occurred to me that this song could be about a younger guy... it seems really obvious, based on the age I imagine she was when she wrote this, as well as similarly-themed lyrics from a few other songs on Frank (mainly 'Amy, Amy, Amy') that it's about an OLDER guy she works with. I understand how the references to his 'battered jeans and Beasties tee' could suggest that he's a teenager or a 20-something, but think about it.... Amy was working in the music industry. It's completely plausible that this guy was kind of an edgy rocker type who dresses younger than his actual age... for example, he could be one of her band members or a sound tech guy or even a really dressed-down record exec. Note how in the first verse she describes how she's trying hard to impress this guy with her diverse knowledge of music (with 'Outsiders' and 'my new [Erykah] Badu' being records from her own personal collection) and trying to seem more mature by asking him to join her for a smoke... it seems clear that this guy has been-there-done-that in the music biz and she wants him to think of her as more than just some inexperienced little girl. Unfortunately for her, that's exactly how he feels -- he acknowledges that she's attractive, sure, but she's just a kid. The rest of the song centers around Amy's frustration with the fact that she can easily string guys along and take her pick without having to try too hard ("he's nothing in the scheme of my years" and "I'm not used to this - I observe, I don't chase"), but of course the one guy she really wants and looks up to has little interest in her and, contrary to what she's used to, HE has the upper hand (so to speak, since he's older and more experienced in their shared trade and, presumably, in his sexuality). I just love this song. It was quickly one of my favourite tracks off of Frank... "You sent me flying... when you kicked me to the curb." ... How brilliant is that line? Before I listened to it, based on the song title, I was expecting a saccharine love song about how her romance uplifts her into the sky and far off into the heavens... but nope! |
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