Nick Cave and Warren Ellis Pay Solemn Tribute to Amy Winehouse on Moving Biopic Ballad ‘Song For Amy’

Gil Kaufman
·2 min read
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Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have been making beautifully morose music together for more than three decades. In addition to their longtime collaboration in Cave’s Bad Seeds band, the pair have also teamed up for a more than a dozen soundtrack score albums, including their new score for the Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black.

In keeping with their eternally bleak, theatrical vibe, the pair released their homage to late British R&B singer Winehouse on Thursday (April 11), “Song for Amy.” Like much of the score they wrote for the film — which opened in the U.K. on Friday (April 12) — the tribute track leans into a dramatic, emotional vibe, accented by a haunting flute and piano riff and Cave’s signature pleading vocals.

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“You say it’s time/ For us to call it a day/ I will love you anyway/ You know that I don’t even care what they say/ I’ll still love you anyway, baby,” Cave sings emotionally as strings swell up and he adds the gut-punch lines, “Love gives everything/ Just to take it away/ And I’d give you anything for you to stay.” The somber 12-track score features 10 instrumental cues (with titles such as “Tattoo Parlour,” “At the Taxi,” “Snooker Hall” and “Soho To Glastonbury”) as well as the 3:19 “Song for Amy” and a 2:12 instrumental reprise of that track.

“Nick and Warren were the only musicians in my mind to score Back to Black,” director said Sam Taylor-Johnson said in an earlier statement. “Over the years I’ve listened to everything they’ve composed and longed to realize the dream of working together. Their sensibility as well as understanding of this story has led to a profoundly deep and moving film score.”

Back to Black: Songs From the Original Motion Picture is due out on May 17 on UMR/Island Records, the same day the film opens in the U.S. The collection features classics from Thelonious Monk, The Specials, Little Anthony & the Imperials, The Shangri-Las, Billie Holiday, Donny Hathaway, Tony Bennett, Willie Nelson, Minnie Ripperton and others, as well as a handful of Winehouse’s most beloved songs, including “Rehab,” “Tears Dry on Their Own,” “Me & Mr. Jones,” “Back to Black,” “Fuck Me Pumps” and “Song For Amy.”

The movie’s cast includes star Marisa Abela (Industry), as well as Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan) as father Mitch Winehouse and Jack O’Connell (Godless) as troubled husband Blake Fielder-Civil. Winehouse died in 2011 at 27 of an accidental alcohol overdose after years of substance use struggles.

Listen to “Song For Amy” below.

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