It was somewhere around Christmas when I felt I should finally go to Camden Square 30...Amy Winehouse's last residence... I've been following her evolution and listening to her music since early 2007, secretly and selfishly wishing we'd benefit from her talent for as long as could be.
It was around 3 P.M. and the air around her house had such a nostalgic magnetism about it, a lively one! As I was looking through the messages people left on the poor tortured tree in front of her house, I've noticed the lights from the buildings around were on...the Christmas trees inside and... all in all, time moving ahead, while in my head it stood still...Her house, painted so pretty though, was the saddest around the Square and that solitude haunts me still. It's different than that feeling of losing a friend, especially because the way I relate to music has nothing to do with reality.
In this book I recently read about her, I've found a girl living in her world, always wanting to save people who needed to be rescued and who lived the music she was creating. For Amy, writing a song was like "cutting an arm off".
It's such a shame that people around her were afraid for her safety for some years, and still, she was found dead alone, in her home, after 6 hours and 5 minutes, by her bodyguard... 6 hours in which time moved on, without anyone wondering a single thing about her...
I left Camden that evening, but Camden Square 30 remains an address where a piece of me remains, in her honour.
"You hear them call your name
From your room
Far removed
Don't let 'em use you in, every way
Stay unchained
Around and round you go
They'll never know, what you've seen
Why have you turned away..."
(Mark Lanegan, Museum)