Music Review: Amy Winehouse "Rehab"

Amy Winehouse

Rehab

Album: Back To Black

Year: 2006

          Amy Winehouse struggles with her alcoholism in the tragic “Rehab.”

             A highfalutin horn opens the single, setting an overcompensating tone.  In the chorus, she tells one of her friends that her family tried an intervention last week. They told her she it’s something she has to do. Otherwise, it will kill her. She told them there was nothing wrong with her. She admits to being depressed but she’s better now. There are a lot of things she has to do. Besides, her father stood up for her and said she could do it on her own. (“They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'/Yes I've been black but when I come back you'll know know know/I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine/He's tried to make me go to rehab but I won't go, go, go.”)

            She puts on old soul records – Ray Charles’ “What I’d Say” and Donny Hathaway’s “Everything Is Everything” – to cope. They both understand her pain and hurt. The albums on repeats for hours until they begin to skip. She wasn’t much of a student. However, on the other hand, she knows drinking isn’t going to solve her problems. (“I'd rather be at home with Ray/I ain't got seventy days/Cause there's nothing/There's nothing you can teach me/That I can't learn from Mr. Hathaway/I didn't get a lot in class/But I know it don't come in a shot glass.”)

              The chorus is sung again.

              She sits in her therapist’s office, saying nothing. She looks at the time. In another half hour, she’ll be able to go back to her room. He keeps answering the same question over and over in different ways, trying to get to her to talk. Finally, she answers that her boyfriend is going to leave her at any minute. He doesn’t really love her. He tells her she suffers from depression. She shrugs and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. (“The man said 'why do you think you here'/I said 'I got no idea'/'I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose my baby/So I always keep a bottle near'/He said "I just think your depressed/This me:  “yeah, baby, and the  rest.”)

               A shortened chorus is sung. (“They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'/Yes I've been black but when I come back you'll know, know, know.”)

                 In the bridge, her face is covered in sweat and vomit is in her hair. She curls up on the bathroom floor, promising to empty every bottle in the house. She can’t remember the last time she talked to one of her friends from high school. She lost contact with every group she knew. She can’t be sick. She can’t be the person who people will look at with sympathetic eyes, telling her how strong she is. The pain will go away, she keeps telling herself, it has to. (“I don't never want to drink again/I just oh I just need a friend/I'm not going to spend ten weeks/Have everyone think I'm on the mend/It's not just my pride/It's just til these tears have dried.”)

             The chorus is sung again.

           Winehouse, raw and defiant, is crippled by her demons. Real or imagined, she wants to defeat them by herself. She doesn’t want help. She wants be by herself and mourn what she’s missing. Her therapist only states the obvious.

           The  wounded “Rehab” is solid proof of Winehouse’s talent. It’s unfortunate she never realized it.