You got me on my knees
“Layla” is waarskynlik een van Eric Clapton se bekendste (indien nie DIE bekendste) songs. Of jy die oorspronklike meer upbeat weergawe verkies of die meer sentimentele 90′s weergawe, dit bly steeds tydloos. Maar agter die liedjie is daar ook `n storie…
“Layla” is the title track on the Derek and the Dominos album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, released in December 1970. It is considered one of rock music’s definitive love songs, featuring an unmistakable guitar figure, played by Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, and a piano coda that comprises the second half of the song. Its famously contrasting movements were composed separately by Clapton and Jim Gordon.
In 1966, George Harrison married Pattie Boyd, a model he met during the filming of A Hard Day’s Night. During the late 1960s, Clapton and Harrison became firm friends. Clapton contributed guitar work on Harrison’s song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on The Beatles’ White Album but remained uncredited, and Harrison played guitar pseudonymously (as L’Angelo Misterioso) on Cream’s “Badge” from Goodbye. However, trouble was brewing for Clapton. Between his tenures in Cream and Blind Faith, in his words, “something else quite unexpected was happening: I was falling in love with Pattie.”
The title, “Layla”, was inspired by the The Story of Layla / Layla and Majnun, by the Azerbaijani 12th century poet Nizami Ganjavi. It is based on the real story of a young man called Qays ibn al-Mulawwah from the northern Arabian Peninsula, in the Umayyad era during the 7th century. When he wrote “Layla”, Clapton had been told the story by his friend Ian Dallas who was in the process of converting to Islam. Nizami’s tale, about a moon-princess who was married off by her father to someone other than the one who was desperately in love with her, resulting in his madness (Majnun, meaning “madman” in Arabic), struck a deep chord with Clapton.
Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Clapton in 1979 during a concert stop in Tucson, Arizona. Harrison was not bitter about the divorce and attended Clapton’s wedding party with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. During their relationship, Clapton wrote another love ballad for her, “Wonderful Tonight.” Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989 after several years of separation.
To listen to the track … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX5USg8_1gA
