One night around 2010, I came home after a night out and played an interpretation of Back to Black alone at 4AM, full blast, on my Fender Telecaster and Reverb amp, by the fireplace of my ceepy 1893 house. My voice horse, from a late night out. The wood creaking, the eerie feeling of that old house, the loneliness in that weird neighborhood with an abandoned house next door. The memories of tearing up the floor in that room and living in the house through the remodeling process. That night captured so many feelings and memories in one temporally compressed instance.
I’d always loved the original version by Amy Winehouse, it captures that blues vibe with the pain and agony of life, but I wanted to put my own spin on it. The idea was to play it much slower than the original, make it grittier, capture the agony of life in it, combined with the angst of my generation, and use that contrast of quiet and loud that PJ Harvey mastered in Dry and Rid of Me. The first night I did it was incredible. I knew it in all of my heart, it was perfect, but sadly I didn’t record it.
I tried 20 more times to record it, and never quite captured it in it’s full purity (painfully fitting, I guess). I believe it was still a late night version by the fireplace, but not the original night. Here’s the closest I ever came to capturing it on tape, please excuse the clipping:
And, here are some pictures to give you a feel for the location. The beautiful sunny day the pictures were taken of the outside, and the abandoned house next door, do not do it justice for at night, during cold, Fall thunderstorms, or frozen winters. Thanks to Gary for helping me tear up that old linoleum floor (hint to NOFX song on purpose)! This place was made to make good music! 🙂
