The real Valerie from Amy Winehouse’s classic hit is finally unmasked – and she reveals what the lyrics mean
THE real Valerie from Amy Winehouse’s hit song has finally been unmasked and has shed some light on what the lyrics really mean. Celebrity make-up artist, Valerie Star, opened up in a recent interview about how she had been the inspiration behind the original Zutons track after dating frontman Dave McCabe. According to VICE, the […]
THE real Valerie from Amy Winehouse’s hit song has finally been unmasked and has shed some light on what the lyrics really mean.
Celebrity make-up artist, Valerie Star, opened up in a recent interview about how she had been the inspiration behind the original Zutons track after dating frontman Dave McCabe.
According to VICE, the song was written in 2006 for the band’s second studio album, Tired Of Hanging around.
And the narrative of the song focuses on the long-distance relationship between Valerie and Dave after the make-up artist was banned from moving to the UK.
Valerie details how she came to meet the band’s frontman in a bar in Florida, where she bought him a drink after watching the him play and the relationship continued as she would arrange to meet him in different cities.
She told VICE: “I’d fly out to see him. It was great. We had so much fun together.”
However, the inspiration behind the lyrics came when Valerie was due to move to Liverpool to be with the singer and was unable to, due to an arrest that stopped her from entering the country.
She admitted: “I got arrested the week before I was going to go to Liverpool to be with him. It was my, I want to say, seventh felony driving on a suspended license.”
So the line which Amy sing’s about getting a “good lawyer” is in fact talking about the legal battle that followed.
Valerie Lyrics
Well sometimes I go out by myself
And I look across the water
And I think of all the things, what you’re doing
And in my head I paint a picture
Since I’ve come on home,
Well my body’s been a mess
And I’ve missed your ginger hair
And the way you like to dress
Won’t you come on over
Stop making a fool out of me
Why don’t you come on over, Valerie?
Valerie [3x]
Did you have to go to jail,
Put your house on up for sale, did you get a good lawyer?
I hope you didn’t catch a tan,
I hope you find the right man who’ll fix it for ya
Are you shopping anywhere,
Changed the color of your hair, are you busy?
And did you have to pay that fine
That you were dodging all the time, are you still dizzy?
Since I’ve come on home,
Well my body’s been a mess
And I’ve missed your ginger hair
And the way you like to dress
Won’t you come on over?
Stop making a fool out of me
Why don’t you come on over, Valerie?
Valerie [3x]
Well sometimes I go out by myself
And I look across the water
And I think of all the things, what you’re doing
And in my head I paint a picture
Since I’ve come on home,
Well my body’s been a mess
And I’ve missed your ginger hair
And the way you like to dress
Won’t you come on over?
Stop making a fool out of me
Why don’t you come on over, Valerie?
Valerie [7x]
Why don’t you come on over, Valerie?
She said: “I was supposed to have already been [in Liverpool] and I was like, “I’m just going to be a little longer. I just have to deal with a little bit of a law thing. I kind of got arrested and spent every cent.” And that’s how he wrote the song. And it was like, “Did you have to go to jail / did your house go up for sale?.”
However, after nine months Valerie explained that she had decided to stay in the US, which is when Dave finally revealed that his song about her was getting made into a single.
She also recalled how the line “I’ve missed your ginger hair and the way you like to dress” talks volumes about that period of her life.
She said: “I do like that part. And I used to dress really ridiculous back then too, per that line (“I’ve missed your ginger hair / and the way you like to dress”). It really was about that part of my life. I was dressing ridiculously fabulous, following around this boy in a band, and getting arrested really well.”
But, when Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson re-released the song as a cover a year later, Valerie confessed that it felt ‘surreal’ that a song written about her had achieved such major chart success.
She told VICE: “I remember meeting Mark [Ronson] when he was doing a radio interview alongside Dave. Mark said [to me], “I feel like I should open up my wallet and just hand you money.
“It was really funny. It’s also kind of surreal.”
Amy tragically died of alcohol poisoning a few years after the song’s release in 2011, aged 27.
However, the star’s Back to Black album went on to become the UK’s best selling album of the 21’st century.
Speaking to The Sun recently Mark Ronson, who penned Valerie and the hit album with the late singer, called her a ‘genius’.
He said: “Nothing will ever be as important or as loved as Back To Black. Amy was the first person I ever worked with, the most honest and most talented.
He added: “She wrote the song Back To Black in ten minutes.
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“I just had to come up with good arrangements to help her and enjoyed its success without having to go through the same pain as Amy.
“I was closed off emotionally back then and it’s taken me this long to go through my own pain and write a record about it.
“Now I realise just how incredible she was. It was a masterpiece. If anyone deserves to be called a genius, it’s Amy.”
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