Ode

Several days after I put up my previous post, my friend tells me Winehouse is dead..

I feel as if a friend of mine died. I have been contemplating her death, but it's still painful to hear it happen.

I clearly remember the first time I've ever heard her. It was early 2007, I was in the car with my mother, she was driving me somewhere, we were running an errand before I moved to Tokyo in April that year. I was blown away by this song and the singer's voice. But the DJ wouldn't speak between songs and I never got to learn who she was.

Several months later, probably May, I'm sitting in my room at the dormitory, chatting with my friends on my computer, and a musician friend tells me, "You should listen to Amy Winehouse, she's dope!". I say I'll check her out. After listening to a couple of songs, there it is! The song I heard in the car 'is' Amy Winehouse. Soon I become a junkie of her songs, and make several songs with her influence.

And I never get bored of listening to her songs for years to come. But now I don't think I can listen to her until my grief is over. Because her death's making me so claustrophobic and depressed. It's also kind of a metaphorical end of an era of my life (me moving out from Tokyo, coming back to Istanbul). I got to know about her when I first got there, and I come back to Istanbul she's dead..

The other timely coincidence is I had put my trip back to Istanbul earlier than I would want to because she was going to perform in Istanbul in June, but of course it got cancelled. Not long after she passed away.

There was no other musician whose songs I listened to a million times. She moved me with every single word she wrote, and I could identify with her songs at some level..

She lived love and fame on the wrong side of the glass.

Rest in peace

And thanks for putting me in your top friends on myspace for 'four years'..

http://www.myspace.com/amywinehouse