Tears Dry On Their Own - Amy Winehouse
The Original Version is the superior and most self-aware/thought provoking
I have been an Amy Winehouse since I was about 6 years old and KISSFM played her song ‘Back to Black’ for me to hear. I find myself either listening to her Lioness album or talking about her a lot. During rehearsals with my scene partner a few days ago, I ended up talking about the song which titles this essay. We were next to a well lit pier and the air was incredibly icy, prompting me to put my hands in my pocket. Getting off topic from our task to rehearse, we ended up talking about music and I told him how the Original Version is far superior to the ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough!’ music video version that most people know while he stared at me. I’m sure he was a little lost, but I’m glad he paid attention! Now I’m going to nerd out on this beautiful song for you to see where I’m coming from.
The version of this song that most people know is this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great example. It really shows where Amy Winehouse got style inspiration with her beehive hairstyle as well as the Lauryn Hill, Frank Sinatra music influences within her song’s style. The song actually reminds me a bit of ‘Doo Wop (That Thing)’ a little, in terms of vibe. However, there is something so vulnerable and beautiful in the original version that I just don’t feel in the commercialized/more mainstream one. Take, for example, LYRICAL DIFFERENCES.
Both versions of the song begin pretty similarly, with:
All I can ever be to you is a darkness that we know
for the official version and
All I can ever be to you is a darkness we once knew
for the Original version. Though a subtle difference, there is already a set difference in how Winehouse seems to process her relationship. I see it in the use of ‘know’ compared to ‘knew’. When you know something with someone else, there’s an implied active nature in that. You both still know something, whilst the Original version seems to say that the knowledge of the darkness that is Amy is gone. It was there once, but it’s gone now. As a result, the Original version’s lyrics goes on to say
And this deep regret I had to get accustomed to
rather than the Official Version’s ‘this regret I’ve grown accustomed to’. The regret is felt more intensely and it’s something that she had to learn to live with rather than grew to be used to. Of course, both versions can technically be communicating the same thing, but the Original is a lot more open with the process taken in living without this relationship as part of regular integrated routine. Even looking at the ‘highs’ of the relationship, it’s a lot easier to contest Winehouse’s view of this relationship. The Official is a lot more vague and so the relationship feels a lot more sunshine-y than you’d usually be led to believe. Explaining their nights in the hotel room, I got the image of night escapades, travelling, a sense of adventure outside of regular life. But in the Original, she says
Once it felt so right
Anticipation at its height
Lived and waited in hotel rooms late at night
lived? Left in a hotel room, anticipating bomb sex, quality time, perhaps even a hug, and you’re left to your own devices for so long that you have to make a life inside this little room? And this happened multiple times??? It’s like when your friend breaks up with that guy that your tolerance for wholly depended on how he treated her and then she reveals that he was a dick. Even though both versions of the song say she struggles to walk away, I feel less of the struggle with the original. It’s very honest but strong in nature. She knows she hasn’t met her match, she’s just trying to get into the mindset of her heart following her head. But the original seems to communicate a deeper issue with Winehouse’s ability to love in general.
I don’t know why I let myself get so attached
Where the official version she wonders why she got attached (implying that the guy is an anomaly and she’s better than that), she straight up says she doesn’t know why she lets herself get so attached, presenting it as her hamartia (fatal flaw). There is a genuine issue in her discernment and because of it, she is in this position. Now usually, you can just argue that lyrics or songs have quite a distance with the artist performing it, but with Amy Winehouse, whether she intended it or not, it’s very hard to see that separation, if it’s possible. Knowing her life from documentaries and looking at the letters she wrote to her ex husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, I doubt that this passion didn’t translate into her songwriting.
In ‘Tears Dry On Their Own’, it feels like Amy is telling herself through this song and to us that separation is something that she has to deal with, but it is terrible to deal with. Although it’s said that nobody owes anybody anything and the moment you’re no longer with someone, they don’t owe you safety over your feelings etc, but that doesn’t make it any less hard! The official vs original version of the song feel poles apart because one is telling you that you don’t need this man, he’s an anomaly and you will rise above him. The other is telling you something a lot more difficult to swallow: that you know exactly what to do to get out of a horrible cycle of hurt you’re in but you just don’t have the capacity to act on it. You have a responsibility to yourself to get over this, but you just can’t. Even when you’re some ‘next man’s other woman’, you are still playing yourself because of the cycle you put yourself in.
I wish I could say "no regrets" and "no emotional debts"
'Cause as we kissed goodbye, the sun sets
So we are history, the shadow covers me
The sky above a blaze that only lovers see
Of the Official version, I think this is the only part that has a trace of the Original’s sentiments. It’s a moment of honesty in the more upbeat song where she acknowledges that whilst she wishes she could say that she has no issues with the relationship and how it went, not affecting her at all, she isn’t impervious to feeling. Their goodbye is still a kiss, a final moment of closeness, and as they separate, the day ends as if the sun was only there to backdrop their love. Now she’s in a shadow and the sky is something only people that have risked loving, as she has, can see. The original has the small tweak of saying
And as we kiss goodbye
The sun behind you sets
Specifying the position of the sun as behind her former lover, it’s almost like it’s in his possession or under his control and now that they are over, she doesn’t have access to that sun anymore. Just as when you break up with someone you lose access to significant parts of them, this breakup has made Amy lose access to something as vital as the sun. And I’m meant to be swayed by the happy go lucky jig instrumentals that this song isn’t a tearjerker at its core?
I feel so passionately about their differences because I think that Amy Winehouse is too good of an artist for the songs (or versions of her songs) which show her ability to communicate emotions through songs to be sidelined by more ‘acceptable’ commercialized versions. The Official version shows you why she won the Grammy, why her music was on the radio. This version seems to show the Amy that wrote love letters to her ex husband, who has always been incredibly articulate in expressing her emotions. She feels a lot more human.
thanks for reading! and please listen to the original version here