There is a certain irony that Eric Clapton's most famous
song was recorded by a group in which he hid his name and leadership to avoid
some of the pressures he had endured in his previous supergroups, Cream and
Blind Faith. Sharing the guitar lead with Duane Allman (of The Allman Brothers
Band) and writing duties with the rest of the group when they weren’t playing
covers. Clapton produced just 0ne album with Derek & The Dominos before
retreating back into the shadows of addiction and pain.
The song was inspired by Layla and Majnun, a 12th-century
poem by Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi, which tells the tale of a man driven to
distraction by the woman he cannot have. The real-life Layla was Pattie Boyd,
wife of Clapton's best friend, George Harrison, and the woman with whom Clapton
had fallen madly in love. Over the course of a double album, he spells out his
dilemma of unrequited love, its apex coming with this monumental track, a
seven-minute-plus howl of agony and grief, a personal statement almost too raw
to comprehend. He wonders whether he will go insane, asking the same question
as blues legend Robert Johnson in his darkest hour: is his “love in vain”?
Clapton’s original rough version of the song was revved up
with an opening lick by Duane Allman taken from an Albert King song, turning
its original ballad form into a rocker played out in six overdubbed guitar
lines.
The four-minute piano finale was a separate song by drummer Jim Gordon
and added three weeks later.
As for "Layla” herself, Pattie Boyd
eventually left Harrison and married Clapton in 1979, although the marriage
ended in divorce in 1988.
