'Drowned in me, we bathe under blue light.' 'When he comes to me, I drip for him tonight,' she sang on I Wake Up Alone.
She sang about the ache of the body, the need for emotion, the distracting allure of a man's shoulders, shirt, underwear. She sang openly of female desire – not the squawky, shrill sexuality of Sex and the City and Ann Summers, but something truer, more physical, more serious. Her songs were filled with broad talk, cussing, drink and drugs and dicks, songs that could hinge on one magnificent, unladylike question: 'What kind of fuckery is this?'
Here was a woman who refused to conform – not in the eccentric mad woman in the attic mould of Kate Bush or Björk, but a woman who chose to live a little wild, follow her heart and sing of the simple stew of being female. Pop music had often cast women as sweet, bright creatures, but Winehouse's lyrics revealed something mulchier, messier.
