Today’s track is #17 of 22 on my Amy Winehouse Mix CD, and almost certainly the final entry. That’s not to call it my least favorite. It just took me a while to come around on this one. More on that in a minute. “Take The Box” is the ninth track from Amy’s 2003 debut album Frank. It was written and produced by Amy Winehouse with co-production credited to Jony Rockstar, a.k.a. Jonathan Lipsey. It was the second single from Frank and peaked at #57 on the UK singles chart.
I don’t know about you, but most of my music listening comes while I’m at my desk working or driving in my car. More often than not I’m listening to albums, but I also make a lot of playlists for different situations. For my favorite artists I’ll create a smart playlist so if I click the ‘favorite’ button on a song it automatically adds to their playlist. Then if I’m in the mood for some Amy Winehouse but I can’t decide on an album I’ll just shuffle my Amy Favorites playlist. You all do that, right? I’m not actually explaining something here that only I do. Come to think of it, I’m doing that with this Mix CD.
After a while you get used to the same songs over and over on a playlist. When I was making my Amy Favorites list one track that I omitted was “Take The Box”. For years I’d hear it on Frank and it lived in that music purgatory where I don’t dislike the song, but I don’t like it enough to call it a favorite either. During my great Amy resurgence of 2024 as I’ve been digging deeper into her music “Take The Box” started hitting different.
Like nearly all of Amy’s songs, the lyrics are raw, insightful, and more vulnerable and honest than most are willing to be. In her pre-song banter at 2004 North Sea Jazz Festival (see link below) she apologizes for playing a sad song and says, “But I’m happy now if that makes a difference.” That leads me to believe that this song – like most of her songs – was autobiographical. She was the victim of a cheating boyfriend and she wrote this song when she was in the midst of some mixed feelings. In the same verse she sings about being “so fucking angry” that she doesn’t want to be reminded of him, then shortly after asking, “You make me cry, where’s my kiss goodbye? I think I love you.” We’ve all been there. She hates this guy but she loves him and she hates that she loves him. In my mind “take the box” is her polite way of saying, “pack your shit and get out of here”. She ends the song repeating “take the box” over and over and it might seem like ad-libbing or just plan lazy writing, but I think it was her begging him to take his shit and go so she didn’t have to see him anymore and be reminded of how she feels. For some reason I feel like “put it in the box” is symbolic as well. Amy is telling herself to take this relationship, pack it up, and move on.
“Take The Box” is a song that I prefer performed live. Something about it gave Amy more room to improvise than she did on her other early work. I hate to keep recommending the North Sea Jazz Festival show for my favorite performances, but every time I listen to other performances they don’t quite live up. She was on that night and – like everything else North Sea Jazz – they did a fantastic job of documenting it and making it available to us. Some of the best music available online is available on the North Sea Jazz Archive YouTube Page. The D’Angelo set from 2015 is some of the best music you’ll ever hear.
In summary, “Take The Box” took a while to grow on me, but now it’s one of my favorite go-to Amy tracks. A precursor to Back To Black and perhaps the greatest contradiction on a Frank album rife with unremorseful tales of her own infidelity. In fact, we’ll explore both of those things more deeply in the next two days. We’re about to close out this week with a soul-crushing song about heartbreak tomorrow, followed on Friday by the most brazen example of Amy’s insensitive cheating. Should be a fun two days! Good night for now.
mookiefantana 