A Look Back at Amy Winehouse’s Haunting Smash “Rehab”

This month, Amy Winehouse’s groundbreaking LP Back To Black turns 20. The album transformed the sound of modern pop music and paved the way for future stars like Adele, Florence And The Machine, and Lorde, to name a few.

One of her best-known songs is “Rehab”. A track that fittingly documents Winehouse’s very public struggles with addiction. She became known as much for a tumultuous personal life as she was admired for her reading of retro soul.

“Rehab” put Winehouse on the map. It was a meteoric rise that soon led to an extraordinary professional collapse. But both the music and her influence endure. Twenty years on, let’s revisit the British icon’s autobiographical smash.

They Tried To Make Me Go

“Rehab” describes how Winehouse avoids facing her addiction problems. With dry wit and a grainy croon, she explains in the catchy hook why she’d rather not go.

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,
Just try to make me go to rehab, I won’t go, go, go.

Instead of seeking help, she’d rather lose herself in the American soul of Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway. All the life-affirming lessons she needs are right there in the music—reinforced by the track’s hip-hop-minded groove.

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.

Just Need a Friend

Written by Winehouse and produced by Mark Ronson, “Rehab” reached the Top 10 in both the U.K. and the U.S. Back To Black was her masterpiece. It also foreshadowed a further disappearance inside addiction and chaos. Then she was gone.

I don’t ever wanna drink again,
I just, ooh, I just need a friend.
I’m not gonna spend ten weeks,
Have everyone think I’m on the mend.

Meanwhile, in 2008, Winehouse finally said yes to rehab. Three years later, she died of alcohol poisoning. She was 27.

Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images