I keep thinking about the teaser trailer for this documentary about Amy Winehouse.

I don’t think I’m going to be at all famous. I don’t think I could handle it. I would probably go mad.

God. That is a punch to the gut. I loved Amy from the first time I heard her. Much was made of her throwback style but to me she always seemed both timeless and very much of the now. What I found most remarkable was that she was just such a mess. We’re not allowed the luxury of being a mess – women. We have to pull it together and take care of everybody but ourselves and never step a toe out of line and meet everyone’s expectations and if a woman is in the public eye, she’d better by God be a good role model whatever that means. Amy was just Amy, an addict and a mess and lovestruck and a dozen other things and most of all, to the public at least, she was this blazing, incandescent talent with an amazing voice made of sharp angles and raw vulnerability. Her music felt boldly honest to the point of being subversive, full of things nice girls aren’t supposed to admit to feeling. I loved the honesty and vulnerability and attitude of her songs and I hate it that we’ll never know how she might have grown.