The Zutons have revealed how Amy Winehouse’s cover of ‘Valerie’ came to be, and how it was possibly born out of an insult during a pub bust-up.
The track was originally written and recorded by indie troupe, The Zutons, in 2006. However, Winehouse’s 2007 cover has most definitely usurped it as the best-known and most beloved version, becoming a signature for the jazz singer.
However, Winehouse coming to cover the song came after a silly interaction at a party, Dave McCabe revealed to NME. In their ‘Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!’ series, McCabe discussed a hilarious interaction with the singer that suddenly put the band on her radar.
“I met Amy three times in my life,” he recalled. “Once at the Mercury Prize, once in the Camden boozer The Hawley Arms, and once when I was hanging around with this Brummie lad called Boo, who was a tit.”
It was that “tit” that finally made the connection between the band and Winehouse. “He spent all night comparing me to her, saying: ‘If you’re a 1, she’s a 10’. I thought: ‘OK, I get it, she’s good’. Eventually, I said ‘Look Boo, fuck off being a wanker. You’ve done this for hours and it’s pissing me off’,” he said, “and Amy turned round and said: ‘Well, you fuck off then!’ to me, because he was her mate.”
As part of her apology to McCabe, Winehouse revealed that she loved the track, pleading, “‘Please come back. I’m sorry I told you to fuck off, I really like that song.’”
Shortly afterwards, Winehouse’s cover of ‘Valerie’ arrived into the world as The Zutons frontman sat with the singer, chatting about the track as they made amends. Really, they have their annoying friend Boo to thank as McCabe added, “If he wasn’t being a wanker, we wouldn’t have got talking about the song and I don’t think she would have covered it.”
Winehouse’s iconic cover was recorded for Mark Ronson’s second album, Version. It was a strange choice amidst covers of soul tracks, but the singer suggested the track after having this odd run-in with the band’s singer. The rest is history.
Meanwhile, in another recent interview, McCabe said of the cover to Radio X: “The way I see it, it was like a gift from god and I was there to receive it. The band was there to receive it… and some people are like, ‘Were you pissed off when she took your song?’ And I was like, ‘Well not really, because she just immortalised the whole thing.’”
