“Valerie” is a 2007 cover by English singer Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson of the 2006 song of the same name by the English band the Zutons. In the four-minute song, written by the Zutons’ lead singer in less than 20 minutes in the back of a cab, the narrator is looking over water and wondering about the state of a lost love.
Zutons’ frontman Dave McCabe wrote the ditty about a former lover who got into legal trouble and about his wondering whether she was doing any better since the scrape. (The Valerie in question was later revealed to be makeup artist Valerie Star.) Ronson later noted to Rolling Stone that he’d been looking for a recent song for Winehouse to cover for his album after producing hers. The task was difficult since her tastes ran more Motown than modern, but eventually she came back to him with “Valerie.”
Even though Winehouse didn’t change a word of the lyrics, which are about missing ginger hair and inviting a female lover to come over, the fact that she was a woman gave the song a bi twist she rarely showed in her original music. Winehouse herself was also openly bi. With her permission, a friend told the press, as quoted by The Advocate:
So what? I like girls as well. I have had relationships with other women, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still love Blake [her ex-husband] […] There is something about being with a woman that is very satisfying. I don’t care what people think about me being bi — I do what feels good.
Ronson and Winehouse would go on to include their cover of “Valerie” on their tours until Winehouse’s tragic death in 2011.
Years later, in 2019, Ronson made a music video for their recording of the song, wherein he pulls a woman from the audience, styled like Winehouse, to sing the song for the concert venue. The song appeared on Ronson’s album, Version (2007).
The cover has enjoyed critical as well as commercial success. The song was nominated in 2008 for a Brit Award for British Single of the Year and has garnered over 30 million views on YouTube and over 600 million streams on Spotify.
A cover that was deliberately given a queer twist and a Motown treatment, “Valerie” showcases Winehouse at her most bisexual. As such, it claims a spot in bi representation in modern music.