It’s been nearly 11 years since Amy Winehouse died but her stunning voice continues to live on. In recent videos posted by the late soul legend’s longtime collaborator Mark Ronson, he shared her original, raw vocal takes on the pair’s 2006 hit “Back to Black.”
Stitching his video with that of another TikTok user — who’d soundtracked a video showcasing his artwork with “Back to Black” — Ronson first explained what his and Winehouse’s songwriting process had been in the song’s early stages. “Amy came to my studio right here and we met for the first time and I instantly loved her,” he said, sitting behind the same piano they used to make the song. “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.”
“The next day she came in and wrote these incredible lyrics which she scribbled in the back room,” he continued, before playing on his computer the first takes of Winehouse singing “We never said good bye with words, I died a hundred deaths.”
“All hail the lioness,” he captioned the video.
Ronson made a second TikTok the next day, a video response to one commenter who wrote, “This made me tear up to hear her raw takes. Thank you for sharing” under his original video. It featured another demo recording of Winehouse’s deep vibrato, singing “He left no time to regret, kept his d–k wet with his same old safe bet.”
“A little more demo magic from the Queen,” the producer captioned the second TikTok.
“Back to Black” is one of Ronson and Winehouse’s most famous collaborations, and serves as the title track for Winehouse’s final studio album, released in 2006, five years before her death. The record won best pop vocal album at the 2008 Grammys, where it was also nominated for album of the year.
Watch Mark Ronson’s TikToks showcasing Amy Winehouse’s original “Back To Black” vocals below:
@markronson #stitch with @ruben.tt ♬ original sound – Mark Ronson
@markronson Reply to @_catdeluca ♬ original sound – Mark Ronson