Amy Winehouse’s passing, shocking as it was, was no surprise. I’d often see her around at parties or in Camden. What I observed was too dark to be dismissed as simply ‘messy.’ Larger than life, in death, she joins the so-called Forever 27 Club, a pantheon of music immortals that includes Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, shooting stars that would also never reach their twenty-eight birthday. ‘Tragic! ’Such a waste’ we sigh, rightly appalled. But, for some, isn’t there also something akin to sneaking admiration going on here? Sure Amy’s prodigious talent, rebellious beehive and exquisite face will forever be held up as iconic but I don’t subscribe to teen thug Nick Romano’s line in a 1940’s Bogart flick - ‘Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse.’ Too many of my contemporaries - talented, gorgeous and too rock and roll for their own good - have gone the same way. Regardless of the actual cause of death, to paraphrase her hit song ‘Drugs are a losing game.’
