You Know I'm No Good (Amy Winehouse cover)

I was sat in the living room at home when my boyfriend ran in from the bedroom to tell me the awful news that Amy Winehouse had died.  I didn't say a single word at first, hoping it would be a hoax and so we both went to the Mac to search for news on Google.  As the whole world knows now, it was true.  Over the last few months, I've downloaded many concert performances and it's been truly wonderful to listen how she changes and adapts the songs, bringing new life and feeling into them.

She was my favourite vocalist of all time. The feelings from her heart and her soul, she enveloped so effortlessly in that voice and sent it out into the world.  How she sings those words, the timbre and tones of her voice, she was a true vocalist. The Billie Holiday, the Sarah Vaughn of our generation.  And now she is lost.  Her music will live on forever though. I know that her music will always be with me as it will for millions of people all over the world.

Sadly, there's a lot of hate out there though.  A lot of people either bored, misguided or simply rude and inappropriate.  I don't believe in spreading hate.  When I look on YouTube or the Last.FM comments boards and I see the amount of hate some people have for her, I have to think about why they feel the need to tell people about their hate, especially in a place where fans will be visiting and paying their respects.  I wonder what they are trying to achieve - whether it is simply an outlet for their own anger or whether they just enjoy the attention and reaction their callous comments will receive.  Then I wonder if it is really Amy that they're angry at?  Or are they angry at themselves for their own addicitions or maybe their parent's?

For someone so open, so honest, so down to earth, who laid their life out word by word for the world to see, how can people be so heartless?  I guess it comes down to ignorance and simply not caring what they say or to who they say it, or who they might be hurting.  Perhaps they are the only person that matters in their life. I know that is the way of the world, if you tell your truth, you are then open to both praise or criticism.  I'm pretty open myself, so you make the choice and you deal with it.  Even if you have to make excuses for, and rise above the ignorance of other people.

So I wanted to pay my own musical respects and cover an Amy Winehouse song and I decided to choose one of her singles from the Back To Black album, "You Know I'm No Good".

Thank you Amy.  You rocked my world.

Londinium

On Tuesday this week, it was exactly 3 years since I moved to Ireland. I arrived with my suitcase late on a Saturday evening, slightly hungover from my leaving party night out in Manchester.  It was also on Tuesday this week that I accepted an offer to start a new job in London.  I've been looking for a while now and I've had quite a few interviews on the way, but out of all of them, this is the one I would have picked if I'd been given the choice - so it's worked out well :)

Living in London has been my dream ever since I was 17 and I used to go down over the weekend to visit my sister in South Ealing.  The mix of people from all over the world, the energy, the excitement, the fast paced life, the smell of the underground, the massive range of restaurants, the style and the city life.  I'm sure it will be quite different living there, to actually visiting there.  But it's nice to have one of my dreams come true.  I've been lucky with the timing too - 2 of my best friends recently moved there along with having some existing friends there already so I'm not going to be all on my ownsome lonesome.  In addition to this though, the other half of the musical duo I am in, also lives in London.  Due to our distance, we've only written a couple of songs together so far but I think we're both really excited to start working together again.  Our collective name is "Bilamie" and the name comes from 2 of our favourite artists: Billie Holiday and Amy Winehouse - our music so far has been in a similar vein too - jazz/blues/funky soul.  I have to admit, I'm terribly excited.  I really miss being in a band and the buzz of playing live.  I really feel alive when I'm singing.

So it's a big time of change in the next month.

But in addition to all this, I am going to be back in my home land, for Christmas :)