During a break in recording in New York in 2006, Amy Winehouse and her producer, Mark Ronson, took a stroll. In the course of this, the singer recounted to Ronson attempts by her then managers to persuade her to seek treatment for her addiction problems. When she described her response — “They tried to make me go to rehab; I said, ‘No, no, no’” — Ronson remarked that the phrase sounded like a lyric. Within minutes, the pair were back in the studio, working it up into a song. Winehouse initially set it to a bluesy shuffle, before Ronson suggested upping the pace and injecting the chord sequences of both the Beatles and classic 1960s girl-group soul into the sound picture. Days later, they were recording the song with the Dap Kings, a crack Brooklyn vintage-soul band.

Rehab was released as the first single from Winehouse’s second album, Back to Black, in 2006. At the time, Winehouse was already gaining tabloid notoriety for her extracurricular activities. Few anticipated the huge success both Rehab and Back to Black would enjoy, but perhaps, looking back, Winehouse’s descent into the depths of drink and drug addiction was predictable. These days, her musical talent and star quality are almost entirely eclipsed by her off-stage antics, her once reet-petite, foxy appearance — all beehive, tattoos and mascara — now just a sideshow to her old nag’s teeth and wild, angry eyes. Some feel that her record company is guilty of either holding its nose or averting its gaze, content to count the cash. That’s probably unfair. Winehouse is the only person who can decide she needs help. Until she seeks it, she will be associated in the public mind with two things above all others: the car crash of her private life; and the sharp, hooky, sublime slab of retro soul she and Ronson cooked up on that Manhattan walk. Rehab is Winehouse’s theme song. It made her a star, which accelerated her decline. In her description of her father’s reaction to her rehab no-show, you can hear Mitch Winehouse’s anguish and gentleness. "I asked my dad,” the singer once said, “if he thought I needed to go. He said no, but I should give it a try. So I did, for just 15 minutes.” It’s going to take a little longer than that.

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