Amy Winehouse ‘Between The Cheats’

“Between The Cheats”

It’s for the cheaters, which you know is a part of Amy’s comedic play on words, which she always had as a person, in general. She talks a lot of whatever she wants to talk about and jokes. This is her take on the cheaters, ‘between the sheets?,’ no, ‘between the cheats.’ That song was recorded right after May of 2000, almost after the time she was supposed to do the James Bond thing that didn’t pan out. She was a little pissed off that day ‘cause she was like why is it being made if I don’t like the song. So as I arrived at the studio to where she was in the English countryside, I was like, ‘So what do you wanna do?’ She’s like ‘Well I have a song.’ So she told me the lyrics and I was like, ‘What chord you thinking?’ So she played me the first chord, an idea of where she wanted to go with it.

She played the guitar and this is one of the things that people don’t know, the reason why this album exists. All of these songs were written by Amy on a guitar and then produced. Amy wrote the chords to the majority of her songs. You know we have “Love Is A Losing Game,” “Unholy War,” all of those are 100% Amy. That’s the reason why I really felt it was really necessary to have this record is because there’s a musical legacy and a musical genius that people didn’t actually realize was driving her.

People think you got some beats with all the cool people and you know you’re just the girl that sings and is making a train wreck out of yourself. But she was actually a creator of situations and the person that made it all happen. But with that song, she kind of gave me an idea of where she wanted to go with it. I went in and played the bass drums, guitar, and piano. And later on that night, Glen Lewis, the R&B singer and her background singers came by the studio and she was like, ‘Yup, I want all male background vocalists on my album just like I have on stage.’ And they went in and did some backgrounds and that’s pretty much what you hear right now.

Next Song: ‘Tears Dry On Their Own’ and ‘The Girl From Ipanema’