Sophie Baker

Professor Diehl

HUMN-2010

20 March 2024

Amy Winehouse Music Video

I chose to discuss Amy Winehouse’s music video for her song “Back to Black.” This song

is believed to be about her and her boyfriend, Blake, breaking up and him getting back together

with his previous girlfriend. Though the music video does not depict this storyline exactly, it

does exemplify the broken heartedness Amy Winehouse did feel at the time. This broken

heartedness is evident from the very beginning of the video when it is clear that it is going to be

completely in black and white. The absence of color symbolizes emptiness and sadness which

how we can assume Amy is feeling at this time. At the beginning of the video, it almost seems

like Amy’s face has no emotion on it. This quickly develops into a face of anger. You can tell that

Amy is singing with intense passion throughout the rest of the song. A minute into the video, it is

clear that they are heading to funeral, everyone dressed in black AND everyone in black cars.

Amy leads the way to the grave, symbolizing whoever or whatever has died is most important to

her. Amy face passionate face clearly fades into a look of distress and sadness, tears rolling down

her face. It is clear that her lyrics “Me and my head high,” are just a distraction from the fact that

she is truly upset about Blake leaving her. Amy lays a small box into the ground to be buried,

clearly not a person. I believe this is symbolizing her love for Blake being dead, and the attempt

to put him at rest, BUT she never fully buries the box. This makes me believe that she will never

truly be over Blake. Lastly, everyone leaves while Amy stays alone standing over the grave. This
implies that Amy is alone and no longer has anyone to support her. This is an incredible music

video with many underlying meanings.