Despite being one of the most famous and respected musicians on the planet, Eric Clapton had about as tough a life as you can get while also being richer than God and, in some circles, hailed as one himself. To be absolutely clear, the vast, vast majority of his troubles were absolutely his own fault, and Clapton would be the very first to tell you that. In fact, both professionally and personally, he had to rely on more than a few people in his time.
The man is arguably the greatest sideman in rock history. Never a creative firebrand or a songwriting genius, but always able to spot who he could surround himself with to bring out the best of his absurd guitar skills. This was a guy who got his start as “one of the boys” in The Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers after all, then put together Cream more or less single-handedly. He wasn’t the creative hub of any of them, but was the draw nonetheless.
In fact, it was while he was in The Yardbirds that he would find a friendship that would go on to change his life entirely. While the band were at the peak of their popularity, they played a gig at the London Palladium where the bill was topped by The Beatles, and struck up a friendship with George Harrison. This friendship would last for the rest of Harrison’s life, but, famously, would have its ups and downs.
The most famous rough patch, of course, came from the fact that in the late 1960s, Clapton became completely infatuated with Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd. This continued well into the 1970s and became the focus of arguably the best album Clapton was ever responsible for, his Derek and the Dominoes Masterpiece, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Three guesses who the album and its deathless centrepiece, ‘Layla’, was about.
How did this affect the friendship between George Harrison and Eric Clapton?
Eric Clapton would marry Boyd two years after she and Harrison divorced in 1977. The truth is that the rift the two musicians found themselves in went far deeper than even that, though. Boyd has said on a few occasions that Harrison was weirdly passive about the fact that Clapton was obsessed with her, knowing it from the start and having few problems with them getting together after they split. No, the reason that Clapton and Harrison went no-contact for a few years was due to the former’s absolutely horrific addiction issues.
The guitar icon’s dependency on drink and drugs drove a wedge between them a mile wide, and wouldn’t stop in the late 1980s, when he made a concerted effort to get clean. Harrison helped Clapton out at that time by finally reaching out with an olive branch, inviting him to play on his enormously successful solo album Cloud Nine. This marked another period of close friendship, which culminated in Clapton inviting Harrison to tour with him in the early 1990s.
This sounds like a great idea on the surface, despite the famously cantankerous Harrison’s aversion to touring. It was Clapton and his band, so vigorous rehearsals wouldn’t be needed; it was a tour of Japan, so audience behaviour was impeccable. There was just one problem. The centrepiece song on every setlist. The one that was extremely about Pattie Boyd and how much the guitar god wanted her to leave her fuckwit husband.
Rolling Stone asked him about this directly in an interview conducted around the time of the tour, and Clapton was atypically bashful about the whole thing. “That’s always been a bone of contention,” he said. “Every time I play it and he’s in the audience, I’ve always wondered what the hell goes through his mind. But I don’t know, we could play it. We’ve got a sense of humour about it.”
In the end, the song was left off the setlist for that tour. Probably for the best, y’know?
