Amy Winehouse is now part of a noble group of musicians to surpass a billion views on YouTube.
The late singer’s music video for her 2007 hit song “Back to Black” has reached 1 billion views on the platform, 16 years after its release.
The black-and-white video — directed by Phil Griffin — sees Winehouse mourning a failed romance, to which she joins a funeral procession and attends the burial, where a gravestone reads, “R.I.P. the Heart of Amy Winehouse.” However, the gravestone imagery was removed from the music video after the musician died at age 27 from alcohol poisoning.
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Winehouse wrote the song with Mark Ronson — the music producer who created one of the biggest albums of the year for the “Barbie” movie. The lyrics were inspired by her troubled relationship with ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, though they find her missing the relationship.
“We only said goodbye with words / I died a hundred times / You go back to her / And I go back to black,” Winehouse sings.
The Grammy-winning singer married Fielder-Civil in 2007, two years after he briefly left her for an ex-girlfriend before the pair reconciled. They later divorced in 2009.
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Upon “Back to Black”‘s release, it peaked at no. 25 on the U.K. Singles Chart and, following Winehouse’s death, it reached no. 8. The track has gone on to become one of her biggest hits and has since been covered by many artists, including one performed by Beyoncé and André 3000 for 2013’s “The Great Gatsby”.
Last year, Ronson opened up about working alongside Winehouse and shared her unheard raw vocal takes while producing the song.
“I wrote the song ‘Back to Black’ with Amy Winehouse some 15 years ago at this exact piano right here,” he said in a TikTok video, showing viewers the grand piano where the two collaborated. “Amy came to my studio right here. We met for the first time, and I instantly loved her.
“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,” he continued. “Next day she came in and wrote these incredible lyrics, which she scribbled in the back room. And for the first time ever maybe, here are the very first vocals that she did.”
The video, which has since garnered over 4.7 million views and nearly 1 million likes, hears Winehouse singing a slightly different version of the song in an audio clip.
@markronson #stitch with @ruben.tt all hail the lioness ❤️