Back to Black

Back to Black

Amy Winehouse

Ranked as the #98 best song of the 2000’s, “Back to Black” details the harsh reality Winehouse faced after her then-boyfriend, Blake Fielder-Civil, ended their relationship to return to his ex-girlfriend.

The titular “black” to which Winehouse goes back refers to the dark moments of depression and the reliance on alcohol to cope with her heartache. Winehouse commented on the depressing period of time during a 2007 interview with CNN, saying:

I was drinking a lot – not anything terrible, I was just tryna forget about the fact that I had finished this relationship.

The song was released as the third single from the 2006 album of the same name, and, as of July 2015, has sold over 350,000 copies in the United Kingdom alone.

The song was written in March 2006 in New York alongside British songwriter and producer Mark Ronson, who also helped to craft five more songs on the album. During an interview with Red Bull Music Academy in April 2015, Ronson expanded on the creation of the song:

The song – it took me about one night to lay the foundation of that track and then Amy wrote the lyrics and the melody especially fast, so it was like half a day, and then we probably recorded the rhythm track in three hours.