Essa 1

Mark Essa

Diehl

Humanities

26 October 2023

You Know I’m Not Good

After reading the lyrics, one of the most noticeable things is that Amy seems to be

justifying herself from her mistakes. She repeatedly makes excuses for herself in the relationship,

and she even goes as far as blaming Blake as well. Amy constantly repeats, “I cheated myself,”

almost like she’s only saying I hurt myself and that she didn’t do anything wrong to Blake. She

is justifying her infidelity with self-pity. The second time she does this is when she says, “I told

you I was trouble” and “you know I’m no good.” In other words, she’s stating that it’s Blake’s

fault for getting with her because she told him beforehand that she was trouble. Another notable

way she tries to take the blame off herself is when she asks, “Who truly stuck the knife in first?”

Amy is just repeating herself in different ways showing that Blake is either at fault or the reason

for their relationship’s downfall.

The irony of their situation is that Blake was aware she was cheating, and he didn’t care

which upset Amy further. Blake had noticed carpet burns from her sexual encounter and he only

shrugged about it making Amy feel bad about herself. I think Blake’s emotions are quite

warranted; he was able to disconnect emotionally from someone who didn’t care about him.

Amy doesn’t really have a right to be upset about it because in fact, she was the one to stick the

knife in first. The song is almost like a pity party, with Amy complaining and blaming Blake

when she clearly did not like him enough or else, she would not have cheated. She may have felt
Essa 2

guilt while cheating on him with her ex, but it was not enough guilt, or she would not have

cheated on him in the first place.

I enjoyed this song, as well as the rest of Amy Winehouse’s work. I would say it’s my

favorite artist we have learned about this semester so far. I would rank this song first, with Back

to Black as a close second. This song is timeless, I honestly wouldn’t believe it if someone told

me it came out in 2006. I can see why she was appreciated in her time, and why many others

thought she sang like a very experienced singer at such a young age.