Amy Winehouse - "Me & Mr Jones". It would be the greatest cultural achievement of 2007 if we went from country to country, language to language, finding new Amy Winehouses to sing these songs in each place's native tongue. If Back to Black's subtle and amazing production - dusty, gleaming, retro and yet v v hot, - was put in the service of a thousand smouldering singers. You see it's almost the perfect music for a Montreal summer: a music that sounds perpetually like it's wafting from a neighbour's open window. A music of swinging hips and sailing clouds, of wide bright sun over vases of flowers, clear beer bottles, bare forearms. Of that moment when she laughs and leans her head on your shoulder. The only thing wrong is that it's in English. On St-Laurent or St-Viateur that just won't do, no, no matter what language we're speaking. This music it's gotta be en français. So we need a delegation of Winehouses. Montreal could have a homegrown queen or even an import for Louisiana. And England's Amy Winehouse would be welcome, sure, but mostly to coo "moi. et. monsier jones." just before the française sings the french word for "fuckery".
Amy Winehouse - "Love is a Losing Game (Acoustic)". And while it's the production, the arrangement, the style that raises Back to Black from good to pretty damn great, Winehouse herself is outstanding. It's a pity that this is more obvious on the acoustic version of "Love..." than on the one with pride of place on the record. She's joined by the bare minimum of guitar, and fills the room with a sorrow that's tragic, resigned, utterly musical. The prettiest blues. (And the saddest gambling puns.)
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La Blogotheque has a marvelous description of Ola Podrida (in french), along with an Ola Podrida guestpost (in both english and french) where David Wingo talks about some favourite songs. Including Bedhead's "Rest of the Day", which is a fave song of mine too!
The Underpainting, an album I wrote about in February (the mp3's back online), is having its release party this Thursday in Somerville, MA. It's Brian Michael Roff's new project, and even has album art by Matthew Feyld. Highly recommended, and I also have it from a reliable source that Brian's an Amy Winehouse fan.
Posted by Sean at May 15, 2007 12:58 PMI'm happy to see your "fuckery" post. That's my favorite track on the winehouse record and it hasn't gotten as much love as some of the other more obvious "hits." To me, it's the best example of her juxtaposition of old sould and raw dirty.
Posted by ben at May 15, 2007 1:56 PMmmm, the acoustic version is brilliant... & it's funny, i too have been desiring to hear winehouse songs in different languages -- a friend & i translated parts of 'me & mr. jones' into ukrainian, & it worked fairly well -- however, i think it is really much better suited it to français.
Posted by jenanne at May 15, 2007 5:07 PMI've actually translated some Amy songs into français. I think they're pretty good (as far as translations go) but I'd need someone with a suitable voice first, which may be a long search lol
Posted by marc at December 17, 2008 3:35 AM
and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
