Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" in Girl, Interrupted

“No, no, no,” means “No, no, no…”  I guess Amy Winehouse really meant it this time.  In July of 2011, they carried her body out of her London apartment.  But, they weren’t taking her to Rehab…

Forensics revealed  she died of a drug overdose.  I nominate Amy Winehouse’s  “Rehab” song to appear on the Girl, Interrupted  soundtrack.  Amy and Susanna are soul “sistahs.”  Their Bipolar Disorders join them at the heart.

Many of the experts I’m reading say Amy lived a life in denial.  From the age of 13, she was hooked on drugs and alcohol but never really grasped the severity of her addiction.  She often admitted that she might be a little manic-depressive.  I mean, everyone has mood swings.  Right?   Her friends, her family, her father, they all pleaded with her go to rehab, but she would have none of it.  So here comes the line from her famous song:  "They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no."  

Reading of Amy’s struggles is like reading Susanna Kaysen all over again.  Both of these young women evoked a sense of impending failure or doom, but like many bipolar people they also experienced these feelings of self-importance.  It’s like Amy  adopted her own stage persona.  Self-destructive, it’s who she is.  That’s what her fans wanted.  The catwoman make-up, the pin-up girl tattoos, the drug stories, and last but not least, all the craziness that came with. It’s probably combination of bipolar and drug addiction that did her in.  That’s a nasty cocktail.  Much in the same way, Susanna was also a Drama Queen. After swallowing 50 aspirin pills, she called up her boyfriend to let him know. Even though she was trying to kill herself, she still lived for the attention. 

I see a spiritual connection between Amy the rock star and Susanna from Girl, Interrupted.  When given the chance, they both choose to live in a “parallel universe.” Amy submits to the drug-addled rock star life: “I write songs because I’m (f-###)ed up in the head and need to get something good out of something bad.”  Susanna finds freedom and comfort inside a mental hospital.  She made sense out of her world through the writing of Girl, Interrupted.   

Here is a crazy meeting of the minds: In “Rehab,” Amy sings ” "I'd rather be at home with Ray" and "There's nothing you can teach me that I can't learn from Mr. Hathaway."  Ray, of course, is Ray Charles.  Mr Hathaway is the famous soul singer Donnie Hathaway. In these lyrics, Amy pays tribute to her idols.  Ironically, Ray Charles is also mentioned in Girl, Interrupted.     For at least a while, Ray’s “home” was McLean Hospital.  From the very same place, Susanna writes of Ray and Sylvia Plath:  “Did the hospital specialize in singers and poets,” she asks, “or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness…” To truly know the answer to that question, you would have to be crazy yourself.