Song – Eric Clapton (Derek and The Dominos) ‘Layla’

As readers may appreciate from previous reviews, the writer is an aficionado of the music of the 70s and 80s.  ‘Layla’ – written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, and recorded in 1971 by their band ‘Derek and The Dominos’– is among my top 5 picks of the music of such period.

According to Wikipedia, the song was inspired by a Persian love story of the seventh century, being the tale of a young man who fell so hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl he went crazy so he could not marry her.  In turn it was inspired by Clapton’s secret love for Pattie Boyd, who was married to his friend and fellow musician George Harrison (of Beatles’ fame). Clapton and Boyd eventually married.

The song is unusual because of its approximate 7 minute length, with latter half comprising a non-vocal second movement with quite distinct piano and progressively guitar piece. This was composed by Gordon.  In truth it makes the song.  This second movement is commonly referred to as a ‘piano exit’.

The song was re-recorded by Clapton in 1992 in an acoustic ‘Unplugged’ performance, albeit without the second movement and thereby about 3 minutes shorter in duration.

The ‘Unplugged’ version won the 1993 Grammy award for ‘Best Rock Song’. In 2004, the original version was listed as number 27 of Rolling Stone Magazine’s ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’.

The writer greatly prefers the original version over the acoustic version, but for comparison the YouTube version of each is below. Clapton performs lead guitar and lead vocals in each. 

Wikipedia quotes Clapton from 2011:

‘Layla’ is a difficult one, because it’s a difficult song to perform live. You have to have a good complement of musicians to get all the ingredients going, but when you’ve got that … its difficult to do as a quartet, for instance, because there are some parts you have to play and sing completely opposing lines, which is almost impossible to do.  If you’ve got a big band, which I will have on tour, then it will be easy to do something like ‘Layla’ – and I’m very proud of it. I love to hear it.  It’s almost like it’s not me. It’s like I’m listening to someone that I really like. Derek and The Dominos was a band I really liked – and it’s almost like I wasn’t in that band.  It’s just a band that I’m a fan of. Sometimes, my own music can be like that.  When it’s served its purpose to being good music, I don’t associate myself with it any more.  It’s like someone else.  It’s easy to do songs then.

Boyd is also quoted as reflecting:

I think he was amazingly raw at the time … he’s such an incredible musician that he is able to put his emotions into music in such a way that the audience can feel it instinctively.  It goes right through you.