Back To Black

Story of Song

Heartbroken Amy wrote this song about a relationship she had after Blake Fielder-Civil, whom she married. Blake had left Amy for an ex-girlfriend and she went back to her dark times, referring to drinking, drugs and depression. Amy said:”’Back to Black’ is when you’ve finished a relationship and you go back to what’s comfortable for you. My ex went back to his girlfriend and I went back to drinking and dark times.”

“Black” which Amy refers to is more likely heroin, to which she was openly addicted; in Los Angeles the second most common street name for Heroin is “black”. The lyrics say:

You went back to what you knew
So far removed from all that we went through
And I tread a troubled track
My odds are stacked
I’ll go back to black

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to Black

Release date

Released on the 30th of April, 2006

Songwriter/s

Amy Winehouse  – Mark Ronson

Label

Island

Chart Rankings

US – 55

UK – 8

GERMANY  – 8

Britain’s best-selling album of 2007.  “Back to Black” is Amy’s third best selling single in the UK, where it spent 34 non-consecutive weeks on the UK Singles Chart and achieved sales of 96,000 copies in 2007. A week after Amy’s death in July 2011, the song re-entered the UK Single chart and peaked at number 8 becoming the second top 10 hit in the UK. Early in 2015 the song was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for over 1,000,000 sales/downloads.  “Back to Black” was the same name as the album; Amy won the MTV Europe Music Award and the Q Award for the 2007 Album of the year. It was the biggest-selling album of 2007 worldwide, selling over 5.5 million copies. In the US, “Back to Black” entered the Billboard Hot 100 album chart and peaked at number 7, making Amy Winehouse the highest debuting British female artist in the history of the US albums chart.

Artist’s age on release date

Amy was 22 years young.

Cover Versions

Beyonce and Andre 3000 covered “Back to Black” for the movie “The Great Gatsby”.

Video