Revisiting Back to Black: Back to Black

This installment is part of a retrospective on “Back to Black,” the most acclaimed album of Amy Winehouse who passed away 10 years ago this July. I’ll revisit one track every month in order of their appearance on the album

Banging piano keys don’t typically make for a song anybody would consider “hard,” but this song is savage as anything that rock and roll could have ever produced.

Unabashedly focusing on a near-death breakup, Amy relives the worst case scenario for many of us: “You go back to her and I go back to…”

Her searing pain is palpable. You can’t help but to shut your eyes and feel that lump in your throat. It’s like the harshest lashing in the most vulnerable of moments, and she’s left bare and bruised with no option but to face reality.

This song feels like it was created for us to experience while we mourn the loss of Amy Winehouse; nothing could be worse, and there is no solace. Only she could give us an all-time-greatest song to lament to with this level of technique. She was a master of heartbreak, and we all have this song to reference when we’re facing it ourselves.