#226 Derek and the Dominos, 'Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs' (1970)
Previously #117
The legend going around for years was that an announcer mistakenly announced Eric & The Dynamos as Derek and the Dominos. In reality, Clapton had just finished up with supergroups Cream and Blind Faith, and wanted to be a bit anonymous. At the time, the 25-year-old Clapton was a heavy heroin addict and was infatuated with his best mate, George Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd. How obsessed, you might ask? Enough to record a 14-track album about her. 5 of the tracks are covers, but even so, Clapton found songs such as Freddie King’s, ‘Have You Ever Loved A Woman,’ with relevant lyrics such as “But you just love that woman/So much it's a shame and a sin/You just love that woman, yes/So much it's a shame and a sin/But all the time you know, yes you know/She belongs to your very best friend.”
‘Bell Bottom Blues,’ the first single was about a pair of jeans that Boyd asked Clapton to buy for her when he was in the States. Of course, he thought this would win her over (they had had an affair but she chose to go back to Harrison), “Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you/Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back.” The crowning moment of the album, and arguably his career, is ‘Layla.’ The song was inspired by a book that Clapton had received, ‘The Story of Layla and Majnun’ by the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi. Clapton identified with it as it’s about a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl, went crazy and so could not marry her. I absolutely love this record. I love the way it builds up from ‘I Looked Away,’ a song about a woman letting the protagonist down easy, all the way to ‘Layla’ and ‘Thorn Tree In The Garden,’ songs about longing and loneliness. It’s so heartbreaking to hear Clapton’s heartache on record. He was infatuated to the point that he couldn’t think of anything else. It’s also heartbreaking to know how this broke up Boyd and Harrison’s marriage, as well as created a rift in Clapton and Harrison’s friendship. Clapton eventually went on to marry Boyd, while guitarist, Duane Allman would die in a motorbike accident a year after the record came out. Drummer, Jim Gordon, suffered a psychotic episode brought on from schizophrenia 13 years later, which culminated in his murdering his own mother.
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