This weekend, while everybody was doing a whole lot of talking (that is, texting, tweeting, or trolling the sewer of the internet otherwise known as the YouTube comment section), I did my best to remain quiet, and just listen. After all,
Amy said of
Back to Black, "I think the record speaks louder than any of my stupid actions or things that I say." So that's what I did; I listened. I listened to an album that I first came to love on my parents' recommendation, and then all over again when Brendan gave me the Deluxe Edition, packed with an additional nine tracks. I listened from start to finish, moving my lips but not quite singing along. It was no easy task to hear this music with which I was once so familiar suddenly be filled with so much sorrow. The music took on a new shape, assumed a darker and more daunting tone, and echoed with more foreboding lyrics than I remembered. Amy Winehouse used to be someone I would listen to when I was feeling upbeat, or maybe a little spiteful, or maybe just when I wanted to feel badass. But listening to Amy on the very day of her death transformed her music, and it was no longer upbeat, but bittersweet.
