Amy Winehouse’s music video for her 2007 hit Back to Black has surpassed a billion views on YouTube, 16 years after its release.
Directed by Phil Griffin, the black and white video sees the late singer mourning a failed romance, to which she joins a funeral procession and attends the burial.
In the original feature, a gravestone read “R.I.P. the Heart of Amy Winehouse”, but it was removed from after her death aged 27 in 2011.
The late British star wrote the song with Mark Ronson, which featured lyrics inspired by her troubled relationship with ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, who she was married to from 2007 to 2009.
Following its release, the track peaked at number 25 on the UK chart, and then reached number eight after Winehouse’s death.
Last year, Ronson discussed working alongside Winehouse on her Grammy-winning album, Back to Black, and shared some of her never-before-heard raw vocal takes in a TikTok video.
Filming the tidbit at the piano where they collaborated, the British-American producer shared: “I wrote the song Back to Black with Amy Winehouse some 15 years ago at this exact piano right here.
“Amy came to my studio right here. We met for the first time, and I instantly loved her.
“She played me all this great 60s music, and she left, and I got very inspired, and I came up with this piano right here.
“Next day she came in and wrote these incredible lyrics, which she scribbled in the back room. And for the first time ever maybe, here are the very first vocals that she did.”
Winehouse passed away at age 27 in 2011, joining many other celebrities who joined the infamous 27 Club, including Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.
She was found unresponsive on her bedroom floor in her home in Camden, London, and died shortly thereafter.
After two coronial inquests, the Grammy Award winner’s cause of death was revealed to be accidental by way of alcohol poisoning.
Winehouse struggled with addiction, frequently turning to heroin, cocaine, and other Class A substances to get by.
Her stepmother Jane Winehouse told The Independent in 2021 that the talented musician had kicked her drug habit before tragedy struck.
