Layla

Eric Clapton looked around the studio. The other players were ready. He had the best studio men in the business with him. Also, a guitar legend, who like himself, was self-destructive in life-style, and, played the guitar with the demons riding alongside his soul. These were rock musicians, yes, but, also men of soul and emotion, who could wring the emotions of the heart by their very instruments. They called themselves, ''Derek and the Dominoes'', but, in reality, they went by the names: Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, Jim Gordon, and Duane Allman. As Clapton counted down to the start of the take of his new song, he had with him men who were also wounded in the game of love. They would know to let the heart play the song. And, the song he would record was his anthem to lost and impossible love, ''Layla''......... There is an old poem from the 12th century written by a Persian poet named Nizani Ganjavi. He composed a poem called ''The Story Of Layla/ Layla And Majnun''. It was a poem about a simple man who had fallen in love with a princess he was never to have. This poem, obviously, was the tale of heartbreak and broken dreams. It remained all but forgotten until the rock era, when one of its prince's in music, Eric Clapton, was told about it by a friend who was in the process of converting to Islam. The poem and story touched Clapton. A young, talented, handsome romantic, Clapton had grown up idolizing the bluesmen from America who played music from their nervous systems. Blues, as the name implies, is virtually the music of the down and out, the forgotten, the people who wallow in missed chances in life. Blues was also the music for failed love affairs. The woman who broke your heart and ran off with someone else. Blues was where you turned to when you willingly wanted to wallow in your pain. Eric Clapton had the music of the blues--- and, all of its meanings--- swirling around his soul. He brought out his emotions when playing the guitar, for the guitar spoke in sound what he could not say in words. It is no wonder that he fell in love with the story of Layla. He had a Layla in his life. She was married to his best friend...... George Harrison met Pattie Boyd on the set of The Beatles 1964 film, ''A Hard Days Night.'' She was one of the extras in the train scene at the beginning of the movie. George fell for this blonde, blue-eyed angel right away. After several days of saying no to Beatle George, she decided that she did in fact find him interesting beyond his immense fame. They quickly became a couple and moved in with each other. In 1966, they became husband and wife and were the epitome of the fashionable ''Swinging London'' crowd. Naturally, Pattie became part of the circus that was the world of The Beatles back then. Of all the early wives and girlfriends of the Fab Four, she seemed the best adjusted to that life. She and George were inseparable and shared everything with each other. Be it music or mysticism, George and Pattie had one of the best relationships going during this time. They had a wide circle of friends. Besides the other Beatles, the one person that George considered a close friend was his fellow guitar star, Eric Clapton....... Exactly when Eric Clapton fell in love with Pattie Boyd has never been established, but, it must have come quickly after their introduction to each other. Eric fell head over heels for her and she was not unaware of how he felt about her. Pattie was used to the attention men paid to her because she had spent her young life as a model. Fighting off the attractions of panting young men was nothing new. But, this was different. Those unknown men just wanted to have sex with her. Eric Clapton was completely in love with her, body and soul. George Harrison also was not unaware of how his friend felt about his wife. It was, remember, a different time in the culture. Free love was everywhere. George, like his fellow Beatles, was notoriously unfaithful, whether married or not. Women threw themselves at these famous men and all of the rockers in this time took advantage of it, including Eric Clapton. Swapping partners was common. Still, George and Pattie stayed married, with Eric as the faithful friend of the couple. As painful as it was to him, Eric Clapton remained at a respectful distance away. He would never do anything to infringe on this relationship, but, if the couple looked like it was having problems, Eric wanted to be there for them. Especially Pattie....... By 1970, things semed to be changing everywhere. The Beatles broke up and George Harrison was suddenly on his own career-wise. Eric Clapton had gone through several groups during the 60's like, The Yardbirds, and Cream. He was exalted as a guitar master whom kids would salute by painting ''Clapton Is God'' on walls all over the world. Eric was very self-effacing and genuinely shy about the attention he was receiving. He enjoyed it, but, always put it in perspective. He was not ''God''. Just someone God had tapped to play the guitar like no one else alive. His guitar playing could be rip-roaring fast, but, his best playing was slow, as if each note he was drawing out on the guitar was a statement that needed to be savored by the listener. He still played his beloved blues, but, made his fortune and reputation with Sixties ''Acid Rock.'' At the start of the 1970's, he was at his peak creatively......... But, not personally. He still was a ladies man. Women were never the problem for him. Except, for the woman he could never have. He still had Pattie Harrison in his heart. The three of them still saw each other socially, but, that was all. Until, that is, when cracks started to develop in George and Pattie's marriage. Rumors of George and his wandering eye had reached Pattie on more than one occasion. With The Beatles over, and, George starting work on his first post-solo Beatles album, ''All Things Must Pass,'' he was more distant than ever. He had become obsessed with religion and God's teachings [ which, he apparently overlooked when being unfaithful] and changed as a husband. He started paying less attention to Pattie. And, she suffered also. Soon, she was turning to a comforting confidant who would understand her problems....... One night in the summer of 1970, George came to a party at producer Robert Stigwood's home. He knew Pattie was there and he was just stopping to pick her up and take her home. When he arrived, Pattie was nowhere to be found. Embarrassed guests finally informed George that the last time they had seen Pattie she had gone off walking alone with Eric Clapton. Furious, George stormed out of the party and on his was to his car he saw in the distance Pattie and Eric walking holding hands. He confronted them and told them that under no circumstances were they ever to see each other again. Then, George grabbed Pattie and drove her home....... Around this time is when Eric Clapton read his Layla poem. He was due to make an album and was composing songs. In the true romantic tradition of an artist he transfered his pain and longing for Pattie Harrison into song. Pattie became his Layla......... He also started shooting heroin. Like his fellow rock stars from this era, Eric took his drugs. First pills, then pot, LSD, cocaine, and whatever else was hip as the rock scene became the drug scene. By the time of his passion for Pattie he had become a stone-cold junkie. With the effects of heroin, another level of pain was added to his emotional state. Love lost [ or, love never gained], plus, the suicidal impulses that heroin brings on brought him to a shattered state of being as the song began recording........ The beginning of the song is a raver. A marvelous, unforgettable guitar riff that announces that this song must be listened to. Then, Duane Allman glides alongside Clapton's guitar with his smooth slide guitar. Its as if these two masters are in a guitar duel. Then, Eric Clapton begins to sing. Always an underrated singer, he spits the words out to the song, expressing right away that he is a shattered human being who longs for his love. This woman, Layla, has him down on his knees. He is begging for one more chance and to please take him back. He admits that he was a fool to fall in love with her, but, as in all-consuming love, common sense is worthless when all of your being is in love with the impossible one for you. The lyrics are short, as is the first half of the song. It should be. Clapton has screamed his pain and loneliness fast and furiously. The guitars take over to play out one last duel for love. Then it slows down almost to a stop before the piano kicks in....... The piano part, played brilliantly by Jim Gordon [ with drops of Bobby Whitlock] is the leader for the second half of the song. If Clapton and Allman are mirror twins for the first half, then Gordon and Clapton make another couple of duelists. The sound of the ''Coda'' is mournful, sad. The blazing guitars have been put away. Now it is time for the musicians to begin crying with their instruments. The piano plays along like a best friend for the solo guitar. Clapton is playing his soul, aching for his love, wondering if he will ever have her. The guitar almost sounds like it is spilling tears, whimpering in self-pity and lack of love. The others playing along: Carl Radle on bass, Gordon on piano and drums, Bobby Whitlock on piano and organ, and Duane Allman with his sweet notes of sympathy, all breath life with their leader. They are sympathically playing along with his longing, as friends do in conversation. But, they have an added magic of playing their instruments to help him ease his pain. When the end of the song does come, it does not with a bang, like in the opening, but, rather with a whimper. You can just picture them, after the last note, quietly put their instruments down, spent, with nothing more to say. The song is for HER........ When the album, ''Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs'' was released in November, 1970, the album did ok. The single of ''Layla'', peaked at a disappointing number 51. The album was critically well-received. It was not the biggest album during this time, though. The biggest album was George Harrison's ''All Things Must Pass'', which had among its many musicians playing on it, a guitar hero named Eric Clapton...... From 1970 until 1973, Eric Clapton licked his pain behind the four walls of his mansion in England. He was using heroin non-stop for these years and his friends deeply worried about whether he would survive. One of these friends was George Harrison, who despite the Pattie situation, deeply cared for his friend and tried to help him into treatment. Finally, after years of seclusion, Clapton came out of his house and found treatment and started to make music again. He got clean [ well, he shifted, as many addicts do, from one drug to another. In this case, he became an alcoholic]. And, around this time, without any interference from Eric Clapton, the marriage between Pattie and George Harrison began to fall apart. Finally, when the marriage was all but over, Eric went to George and asked him if now would be ok if he, Eric, could start seeing Pattie. George gave his blessing, as he said he would rather see them together than her with ''some dope''. George would soon fall in love with his soon-to-be second wife, Olivia. And, Eric and Pattie fell in love with each other, fulfilling the love from Layla...... They would marry in 1979. They held a big reception in London, where everybody who was anybody showed up. Including George and Olivia who remained on good terms with the newlyweds throughout the years. Pattie and Eric would remain married until 1989. The reasons why it ended remain somewhat hidden, but,, Clapton did father children with another woman during this time---- one of which, Connor, would sadly fall to his death at the age of 4 in 1991, inspiring another song from a broken heart '' Tears In Heaven''. Pattie and Eric never had children together...... In the aftermath of all this, Pattie and Eric still seem to be friendly with each other. George, of course, died in 2001. The legacy from these relationships is the song ''Layla''. Heard now over forty years later, it still rings the bell as, perhaps, the most impassioned rock love song of its time. The backstory is still fascinating. But, the sign of a great song is how the audience puts its own stamp on the meaning and feelings found in it. ''Layla'' will always be the song for love lost........ Or, deep, longing for the love that will never be.