Layla: Eric Clapton's Forbidden Love

this video is brought to you by curiosity stream for 30 days of free access to thousands of documentaries head on over to curiosity stream calm / polyphonic and enter the coupon code polyphonic there exists a Persian poem called Layla and Majnun penned in 1192 by Nizami Gadhafi the poem tells a classic archetypal story of the star-crossed lovers it follows a poet named hice who falls in love with a woman called Layla so deep is his love that he begins to compose poems for her and sing them in public this earns the poet the nickname Majnun the madman when he finally proposes to Layla her father refuses saying that Layla could not be seen marrying a mad man against Layla's will her father marries her off to a noble and Majnun runs to the desert and becomes a hermit Layla dies in her new marriage and years later Majnun is found in the desert dead next to a stone with three more poems about Layla scratched into it the tale of Layla and Majnun is a seminal piece of persian storytelling Lord Byron even called it the Romeo and Juliet of the east for obvious reasons the tale went on to inspire countless imitators and influenced poets in the arab world and beyond for the centuries to come and more than seven hundred years after it was first written the tale of Layla and Majnun inspired an unlikely creation one of the greatest rock songs ever created let's take a closer look in the mid-1960s Eric Clapton was friends with Abdel hadir a Sufi a Sufi thinker formerly known as e'en Dallas he knew the story of Layla and Majnun and gave it to Clapton who he thought could benefit from reading it and reading the story struck a chord with Clapton as he too had fallen desperately into a forbidden love you see Clapton had become infatuated with a woman named Pattie Boyd though at the time she was Pattie Harrison the wife of Clapton's fellow musician and good friend George Harrison Clapton channeled this energy into passionate lyrics envisioned Boyd living out a lonely future in a loveless marriage and begging her to take his hand alongside these lyrics Clapton wrote some music but it's not the Layla you know now in his earliest version Layla was a slower piece a more direct ballad but all this changed when Clapton met duane allman the producer Tom Dowd was working with Clapton and his new band Derek and the Dominos when he heard that the Allman Brothers were playing nearby he suggested that Clapton go check them out and Clapton was mesmerised before even got to the show he remembered the moment in an interview with uncut they were already playing when we got there and I could hear this amazing wailing guitar from about half a mile away I saddled the grass in front of the stage and was mesmerized when the show was over Clapton invited Allman back to the studio and they started to jam around with Layla Allman took his guitar and played a vocal line that he heard on Albert King's as the years go passing by [Music] instead of playing at a king slow-paced though almonds sped the lick up and the result was one of the greatest guitar licks ever written searing and powerful from the moment that riff was played it became clear that Layla wasn't going to be a slow ballad it was going to be a fast of rock Derek and the Dominos built it out from there eric clapton laid a half-dozen rhythm guitar tracks and almond laid down his leads on top Clapton and company put the song together and while some members thought it was good as is Clapton thought that the ending needed something and he found his something from an unlikely source while Derek and the Dominos were working on the album that would become Layla and other assorted love songs drummer Jim Gordon had his own project on the go he was sneaking into the studio after-hours to work on a solo album one song for this album was a piano piece though some have alleged it wasn't written by Gordon at all but by Rita Coolidge Clapton told uncut that he caught Gordon playing this song and instead of punishing him for using the studio without paying Clapton asked that Gordon give him the song as an outro [Music] the band took two takes of this piano one play by Gordon himself and one played by Bobby Whitlock on top you put together it all created an unlikely memorable song half heavy rocker with desperate vocals half soothing piano instrumental once the song was complete Clapton showed it to Pattie Boyd who remembered the moment in her autobiography he switched on the tape machine turned up the volume and played me the most powerful moving song I had ever heard he played it to me two or three times all while watching my face intently for my reaction my first thought was oh god everyone's gonna know this is about me when Derek and the Dominos released Layla and other assorted love songs in late 1970 the album underperformed it disappointed critics and failed to chart in the UK even the lead single bell bottom blues only hit number 91 on Billboard's Hot 100 so when it came time for a second single the band released a shortened version of Layla without the piano exit and you'd think this would have worked it becomes a short rock song driven by one of the greatest guitarists of all time but the single only topped out at number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 then a strange thing happened the full version of the song was re-released in 1972 on a pair of compilation albums the history of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman's an anthology and from there the song re-entered the charts in its full seven-minute glory it topped out at number 10 on the Hot 100 and number 7 on the British charts where the shortened version had failed to chart entirely there was something appealing about the long version something necessary it was the juxtaposition the raw pain of unattainable love paired with the intimate beauty of a true romance and in the end Layla succeeded in wooing Pattie Boyd she left George Harrison in 1974 though all three remained friends and finally Clapton married Boyd in 1979 though that marriage would only last a decade at the end of the day humans are fallible and love fails but what remains is the stories the great tales of pure love the Romeo and Juliet and the Layla and Majnun the romances that give us something to strive for and that lead us to create great art laila is a weird case in music history it's a song that didn't resonate at first but one that's become a staple of the rock canon nowadays so how did this happen how does a piece of art stick and become viral that's a question that's always interested me which is why I loved watching Richard clays documentary how to go viral from art to music to memes that documentary explored how something embeds itself into our cultural minds if you want to check it out you can watch it for free at curiosity stream today if you go to curiosity stream comm slash polyphonic and enter the coupon code polyphonic you'll get 30 days free that means a month of unlimited documentaries from thousands of titles on topics including art science history and of course music one of their newest documentaries is the Woodstock bus which documents one man's search to find a custom painted Volkswagen bus that became a symbol of Woodstock there's a really great watch and I personally enjoyed it and I think you guys would too so again if you go to curiosity stream comm slash polyphonic and enter the code polyphonic you can get started today with 30 days free after that membership is just $2.99 a month curiosity stream is a really cool service for anyone looking to educate themselves and just learn about how the world works and if you check it out you'll really be helping me keep this channel going so please just give it a shot

Channel: Polyphonic

Views: 455,299

Rating: 4.9547758 out of 5

Keywords: polyphonic, music, video essay, classic rock, rock, eric clapton, guitar, rock and roll, duane allman, clapton, patti boyd, george harrison

Id: 8lG5lOCS2Uw

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 29 2019