16 years after it was first released, Amy Winehouse’s music video for her 2007 single Back to Black has amassed more than 1 billion views on YouTube.
In a Phil Griffin-directed black-and-white video, the late singer can be seen lamenting a lost relationship as she walks in a funeral procession and attends the burial.
The late British singer collaborated with Mark Ronson on the song, which had lyrics drawn from her tumultuous marriage to ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, to whom she was married from 2007 to 2009.
Years after its initial release, Winehouse’s music video has surpassed one billion views on YouTube. According to the description, the song “finds Winehouse spiraling into nihilistic abandon but wrapped in 60’s girl group harmonies and symphonic strings.”
Winehouse is seen leading a group of finely dressed individuals in a funeral procession in the music video, which was filmed at Abney Park Cemetery in northeast London. The camera zooms in on Winehouse, who is sporting her trademark eyeliner and beehive, as she sings the now-famous chorus, “We only said goodbye with words; I died a hundred times; you go back to her; and I go back to…”
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After the singer passed away in 2011, a scene of a gravestone with the words “R.I.P. the Heart of Amy Winehouse” was removed from the video.
For her second album of the same name, “Back to Black” was the first song Winehouse wrote. It also marked her first time working with producer Mark Ronson. At his Greenwich Village recording studio, where they had just had their first encounter, Ronson said in 2010: “I came up with this little piano riff, which became the verse chords to Back to Black. I simply added a kick drum, a tambourine, and a ton of reverb to the mix.
Winehouse adored it and based the song’s lyrics on the split she was experiencing with her on-and-off partner, Black Fielder-Civil, at the time.
The tune was then recorded in Brooklyn at The House of Soul, a studio managed by the independent label Daptone, which specializes in vintage soul and funk with a rhythm section.
Following the massive hits “Rehab” and “You Know I’m No Good,” the song was released as the third single from the album Back to Black. Later, single versions of “Love Is A Losing Game” and “Tears Dry On Their Own” were also made available.