The Story Behind The Song: How Amy Winehouse almost passed over her biggest cover hit ‘Valerie’
If we didn’t all have the memory of Amy Winehouse being a chart prodigy of the 2000s, you’d be forgiven for thinking that she had been transplanted directly from the heart of smooth 1960s soul into a 21st-century scene, which, at the time, was dominated by breezy laddish rule and indie sleaze. She seemed to be the antithesis to the crux of that ideal—until it inspired one of her greatest hits.
Winehouse walked all over ‘Valerie’ with a swelling soul and jazz force that made the song quintessentially her own—except that it wasn’t her original tune and didn’t even appear on one of her own albums. That seems a bizarre circumstance for one of the cornerstones of the young singer’s legacy to be formed, but, in that respect, it was almost a miracle that the song made its way to a release, as Winehouse nearly passed over the opportunity.
Initially performed by indie outfit The Zutons back in 2006 as part of their sophomore album Tired of Hanging Around, the ode to lead singer Dave McCabe’s crush on makeup artist Valerie Star wasn’t exactly born out of the most poet muse of inspiration for the frontman of the Liverpool band. McCabe told The Scotsman in 2008: “I could tell you I was inspired by gazing out across the Mersey or walking past Macca’s old house, but the truth is I got the idea in a cab on the way to my mum’s. The whole song was written before I got there, so 20 minutes, max[imum].”
However, despite the song’s origins not fulfilling much of a rock and roll lifestyle, its subject matter certainly did. A then-unnamed Star had been caught up in trouble with the law for drink-driving, and evidently feeling down on her luck, a pining McCabe wrote the song as a way of telling her to forget her worries and come to see him instead.
When it was released, ‘Valerie’ had floated around as a reasonable top ten hit before becoming a small staple of the indie sleaze canon in the years afterwards. It wasn’t until two years later that it landed at Winehouse’s door, where it found an unlikely fan.
It was an unexpected choice for the London songstress to commit her voice to, not least because it was a complete departure from her usual genre. However, the following year, stuck for ideas on collaborator Mark Ronson’s album, Version, the pair landed on the tune almost by accident.
When Winehouse suggested ‘Valerie’, no one was as surprised as Ronson, as he claimed she never listened to any songs made after 1967. “I explained that it was soul covers of guitar records,” he told The Independent in 2011, “[and] I wasn’t sure how it would work, but she went into the studio and tried it. I loved it.” Afterwards—and there’s no nicer way of putting this—Ronson essentially nicked the beat from The Jam’s 1982 northern soul hit ‘Town Called Malice’, and thus, a hit cover was born.
The song shot straight to the number two spot in the UK and, subsequently, stayed in the top 20 for a further consecutive 19 weeks, garnering Winehouse and Ronson a nomination for ‘British Single of the Year’ at the 2008 Brit Awards. It really was sheer luck that, for once, she stopped listening to 1960s soul and ventured into the 2000s because it meant she scored one of her most important lasting sonic legacies.
While Winehouse blazed bright but not for long, the same can never be said for her shimmering songbook, combining the forces of the rhythm and blues and jazz of yore and bringing it forward to whole new audiences. Indie sleaze may not have been the most obvious muse for that, but it’s clear that without ‘Valerie’ hooking the hearts of the masses, she may not have remained as celebrated a musical soul.
