Amy Winehouse’s favourite Carole King song
It’s hard to believe that Amy Winehouse was only 20 years old when she released her debut album, Frank.
With a voice that sounded way beyond her years and a general attitude to music that could have just as easily been one of her old, soulful heroes reincarnated, Winehouse truly was like capturing lightning in a bottle. As Darcus Beese once recalled upon discovering her, “Inexperienced as I was, I knew that she had the potential of greatness there. 100%.”
A lot of what Winehouse had to talk about in her music was reminiscent of many of her personal influences. One such hero was Carole King, whose music she grew up on, specifically the intimate, warm sounds of her 1971 magnum opus Tapestry. “My mum loved Carole King’s Tapestry, that was always in the house,” Winehouse told M Magazine in 2004.
Her mother, Janis, later reflected on this too, saying that she used to repeatedly play the album at home and in the car, while her daughter would no doubt listen intently and absorb her songwriting greatness years before she became a legend in her own right. “Amy always looked up to Carole King as one of the great American songwriters, and I’m sure she inspired Amy to learn her craft,” said Janis.
One of the most telling moments when it came to Winehouse’s love for the legendary songwriter was her reimagination of ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’, and while King’s version was more intimate, in keeping with her folk-rock sound, Winehouse’s was more jazz-inspired and uptempo, the vulnerability of the song’s message coming through in Winehouse’s gorgeous vocal.
This was the perfect gateway for Winehouse, especially as the song tackles many of the themes she also explored in her own music, like by navigating the paranoias and uncertainties of trusting someone when you’re at your most vulnerable, ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ gave Winehouse the chance to flex both sides of her artistic offering – rawness and pure strength.
When it came to Winehouse’s ultimate favourite in King’s discography, however, nothing came close to ‘So Far Away’. Another Tapestry classic, ‘So Far Away’ was written about longing for someone you can never have, anchoring the entire album with an emotional core that observed the often disappointing nature of life and love and channelled that despair into art.
Featuring James Taylor on guitar, ‘So Far Away’ also seemingly addresses King’s frustration with navigating relationships with her status: “Travelling around sure gets me down and lonely,” she sings, before questioning why nobody seems to “stay in one place anymore”.
Winehouse loved the song so much that it was played at her funeral, which also seems fitting considering the way it feels like both a melancholy rumination on things lost and an acknowledgement of everything you had. After all, you have to have experienced love to know the pain of losing someone, and Winehouse’s loss was certainly felt hard across most corners of the industry and beyond.
