This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
What'll you do when you get lonely
And nobody's waiting by your side?
You've been running and hiding much too long
You know it's just your foolish pride
Layla, you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind?
I tried to give you consolation
When your old man had let you down
Like a fool, I fell in love with you
Turned my whole world upside down
Layla, you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind?
Let's make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane
Please don't say I'll never find a way
And tell me all my love's in vain
Layla, you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind?
Layla (Layla) you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla (oh), darling won't you ease my worried mind?
And nobody's waiting by your side?
You've been running and hiding much too long
You know it's just your foolish pride
Layla, you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind?
I tried to give you consolation
When your old man had let you down
Like a fool, I fell in love with you
Turned my whole world upside down
Layla, you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind?
Let's make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane
Please don't say I'll never find a way
And tell me all my love's in vain
Layla, you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind?
Layla (Layla) you've got me on my knees
Layla, I'm begging, darling please
Layla (oh), darling won't you ease my worried mind?
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The Night We Met
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Plastic Bag
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Awesome song!! I had never known the history behind this song until I just watched 20/20 and they interviewed Patti Boyd and told her story.
It was before George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh that Eric Clapton became interested in Patti.
She received a letter from a man that stated he was in love with her and it was simply signed "E" She showed it to George and they had a laugh about it and forgot about it till later that evening when she saw Eric and he asked her if she had received his letter.
She started spending lots of time with him- at that time George spent so much time in the studio she was left on her own so much... she was very flattered with George's many compliments he paid her-- one day in 1970 he asked her to listen to a song and put a cassette in and he played "Layla" 3 times and she had by then figured out the song was about her.
That night she and Georged attended a party at Eric's manager's home and she was out in the garden with Eric where George saw them and he asked what was going on and Eric said "I'm in love with your wife"--George asked her "Are you going home with me, or him?" That night she went home with George.
The next time she saw Eric, he held up a vial of heroin, vowing to take it if she didn't run off with him. She refused and she didn't see him for 3-4 years as he then became addicted to heroin.
George and Patti's marriage started breaking apart during that time--the Beatles broke up, George was more distant and distracted..there was lots of drugs and drinking, and infidelity. Then one hideous scene when George was caught having an affair with Ringo Starr's wife Marie.
Eric kicked his heroin addiction and continued persuing Patti. In the summer of 1974 she made the decision to leave George. She then married Eric and they divorced in 1988. She said their marriage was all about extremes loads of heartache and loads of jun, joyous times. He even had written another song for her named "Wonderful Tonight"
In the interview I watched Patti was asked her is the great love of her life. She first asked if she could have 2 and was told no and then she said "Probably George, I feel George is with me forever. So I supposed I'd have to say George is the love of my life"
fantastic song.
listen to this, and then listen to "bell bottom blues" and you'll see how clapton moves from being in love, though furious, with patti harrison to bidding her farewell.
oh, clapton is the coolest man ever. I had the fortune to see him perform this song live....wow.
Little known fact-- The piano part at the end was by the drummer and was originally recorded as a separate project. However, they decided to put it at the end of Layla. Another little known fact- the drummer who wrote the piano part later went crazy, claiming he heard voices in his head, especially the voice of his mother... later, he actually killed her with a tackhammer. He later died in jail.
Actually this song is more than about how he was in love with George's wife...Eric changed the name to Layla because of an old arabic story which seemed to mimic the story of his love for Pattie. The tale goes that when a man "Majnun" saw Layla for the first time, he fell desperately in love with her. However, Layla's father refused to allow him to marry her. Soon after she married a different man, and a while after she died. This drove him mad. He wandered the desert writing verse and poems about her. It was said that he would fall upon his knees (you got me on my knees Layla) and scream "LAYLA" into the wind. It is still said that you can hear the tortured cries on the winds in Saudi Arabia...and this is a true story by the way. His poems were all collected and stored and he was the founder of many arabic romantic poems. Seems to me Eric and Manjun had a lot in common, except Eric got the girl in the end.
I guess its about a one sided love or maybe she loves him back but choses not to be with him for some reason. The best part is at the end with the piano. This is such a beautiful song
Patti Boyd was here name. Harrison treated her like crap.
"Tried to give you consolation When your old man had let you down" and catherineks is right, he's the coolest man ever.
The full version of this song has to be one of the best pieces of music ever written. I'm not really an Eric Clapton fan, but it's impossible not to love this song!
The acoustic version of this song is fantastic. And who can not love the line "Like a fool, I fell in love with you, You turned my whole world upside down." Everyone's felt that before haven't they?
It was a relationship that just wasn't meant 2 b. they were young + it just didn't work. George eventualli found his tru love + it worked. R.I.P
It's a real masterpiece of art one has to be a "clapton" to experience such love situations Sorry I don't know what pushes him to sing it, but it remains one of his outstanding songs.