Flying Too Close to the Sun: Amy Winehouse and the 27 Club

On July 23, Amy Jade Winehouse left this world, and we lost an amazing voice.

Before her troubles, her sultry sound helped her capture six Grammy nominations and five wins for her album Back to Black. Sadly,  her difficulties with drugs and alcohol attracted almost as much attention as her remarkable voice.  

I'm not the only one who will miss that voice.

"It is unfortunate about what happened to Amy Winehouse. I believe that she will be remember for her song "Rehab" and the troubles associated with the song. Irony of song is what she will be remember for because she probably should have gone to rehab," said Laguna Niguel resident Blake Driver, 20.

Another local, Devin Lari, 20 said, "Amy Winehouse house was a great artist. She will be remembered for her music. All of the great artist in the 27 Club are. People tend to forget about the drug problems that people go through but the music lives on."

I may be older than 20, but just a few weeks ago, I downloaded her rendition of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" Her version was velvety-toned with stark reality, and it rambled in my head for weeks. Winehouse’s voice had the ability to cause one to stop and think.

I remember hearing an old blues singer say, “You have to have lived the blues to sing the blues.” Amy seemed like she lived the blues.

The blues, like soul music, goes down deep into the artist’s belly and fires up the feelings and emotions that we know so well. Those musicians touch us with their emotional debris. Amy was suffering. Her many very public escapades revealed that. Despite the sinking feeling we had, we hoped she could pull through it all. Winehouse’s death brought sadness and shock to many.

She was only 27, yet she seemed so old on her journey. Her walk was one of battling addictions and personal demons, although her most recent tour was canceled to allow her time to come back into balance. Sadly, that never happened.  

She has joined the 27 Club—an assemblage of musicians who died at the pivotal age of 27. It includes Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and now Amy. Others who are perhaps not as well-known these days include blues musician Robert Johnson, artist and musician Jean-Michel Basquiat and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of the Grateful Dead.

The fate of this group of enigmatic artists has fascinated people. Some call it the Curse of 27. Each one of the group had extraordinary talent,  yet each was self-propelled toward a destruction that seemed almost magnetic.  

Is There Really a Curse?  

It is not likely that there is a curse, but there is a lesson. Most of those artists lived in the heart of fame, enjoying blessings that most people can only imagine. In fact, there are those who will say they squandered the brilliant gifts they were given. Some will ask: Do the blessings of such genius come with a brutal price? Well, there are many who are equally talented yet not burdened by the desire for excess or passion to ride the razor’s edge.  

In my spiritual teachings, I learned that when we are born, the day of our passing is also present in our energy, whether it is by natural causes, accident or murder. We do have the free will to shorten or lengthen that destination with our choices, lifestyles and petitions if we choose. So as shocking as it may seem, perhaps these musicians simply lived their lives to fruition even at the youthful age of 27.

Their stories are reminiscent of the Greek myth of Icarus. He and his father, Daedalus, were held prisoner by King Minos. Daedalus was an extremely gifted craftsman. He fashioned wings from feathers and wax so that they might escape their prison. He warned his son not to fly too close to the sun because the wax would melt. Icarus, in his joy of flying free, indeed flew too close to the sun, and the wax began to melt. He fell into the sea and died.  

Perhaps this myth offers testimony of what can happen when one soars so close to the edge without taking heed of the warnings of mortality. Just how much self-abuse can the body endure?  

In numerology, the 2 and 7 in the number 27 add up to 9. Nine is the number of completion. It is the end of a passage. We all go through nine-year patterns that begin with our birthday. Every nine years is a lesson. It’s like a quest. Our lesson could be about being safe, healing, discovering love or waking people up with our gifts.  

The lesson starts with year one, which is the beginning of the journey. In year two, we meet others on the path. With year three, we seek to find balance, and in year four to lay out a plan. If the plan is working, year five will go well. If not, we must restructure. Next comes the sixth year, where we re-evaluate the plan. After all that work, year seven makes us think about it philosophically. In year eight, we get the blessings and prosperity of the lesson, and we complete it in year nine.  

We all have that cycle, but we each have different lessons. For the most part, those in the 27 Club seemed to play out their personal quests quite publicly. Their lessons became ours to see and learn from. Their destiny was to open our eyes 1) with their amazing talent and 2) with the paths they chose.

Each, in living 27 years, played out three nine-year cycles. Three is a powerful number. It is about balance. It represents the great cycle of life: child, maiden, crone. By age 27, each had in essence lived out the stages of life at a very fast pace. They teach us that we each have amazing gifts. It is up to us what we do with them.

We all live patterns, just with different variations of time. We each can choose to live our most powerful destiny.

The question becomes, will Winehouse be remembered for her music or more for her torubles?