A while ago I watched two music documentaries within 24 hours of each other: Amy, about the rise and demise of Amy Winehouse, and Anita O’Day – The Life Of A Jazz Singer. Although both were intensely mediocre as films, the similarities between their subjects was striking.
Winehouse and O’Day were both brash, self-assured women in a music industry that preferred women with softer personalities. Both struggled with substance abuse, and both were fantastically talented. They both had powerful, alto-range voices that could knock you over or lull you to sleep.
The key difference, of course, is that Winehouse was consumed by her addictions, dying at age 27, while O’Day lived to 87. (Funnily enough, O’Day died less than a month after the release of Winehouse’s classic Back To Black album in 2006.)
Their similar vices but wildly different outcomes made me wonder why it is that some people are able to push through addiction and mental health problems, while others cannot. Is it simply a question of the situation and people who surround you? Would O’Day have been able to overcome her problems if she had lived in the internet age? Or if she’d had to deal with the British paparazzi the way Winehouse had?
On the other hand, might Winehouse have survived if she had cut ties with her parents at age 14, the way O’Day did? If she had forged her own identity and changed her name? (O’Day is actually pig latin for ‘dough’…she found it snappier than ‘Colton’.)
All these hypothetical questions are as bewitching as the two singers’ distinctive voices. Watching both documentaries didn’t lead me to any conclusions, but it did make me feel like their lives are different versions of the same story; the ending altered by a thousand small choices along the way.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. She’s got a way of singing that makes you think she’s always got a slight grin on her face.
2. Oscar Peterson on the piano makes any song better. Just listen to the magical chord he throws in at the end.
3. If you imagine that she’s singing not about a lover, but about heroin, the lyrics become a powerful message about battling substance abuse.
Recommended listening activity:
Kicking a bad habit.