The 2001 song Eric Clapton called his greatest work: “I’m proud of that”
Anything that Eric Clapton ever made in his prime was never meant to go on forever.
The order of the blues was about serving the kind of audience that appealed to you in the moment, and as per the drifter tradition, ‘Slowhand’ was bound to move on to whatever new thrill came his way whenever he pulled out his traditional blues licks on his tunes. But even after going through some of the greatest heights and hardships of his career, one of the best parts of Clapton’s career was knowing that the best was still out there somewhere.
Because if there was one thing that Clapton could count on, it was his knack for creating the right sound for whatever one of his guitar solos needed. Sometimes all that he wanted to play was a few notes, and yet when you listen to them in context on a song like ‘Wonderful Tonight’, Clapton was taking the bare bones of the blues and turning it into one of the most beautiful and troubling love songs ever written.
When you look at the kind of legacy that he has left behind, though, it’s not always about the blues. His Unplugged performance will forever be associated with him because of his reinterpretation of some of his classic tunes, and while ‘Tears in Heaven’ is among the greatest tearjerkers in rock history, it doesn’t exactly tie back into the blues in the same way that a BB King song would have.
But by that point, Clapton didn’t really care about that kind of approach anymore. He wanted the blues to come out more in his performance, and since he was focused on listening to more R&B artists at the time, like D’Angelo and Usher, he would have gladly tried finding a sense of soul in his music rather than playing for the sake of playing. And nothing really does the trick for a good R&B song quite like a slow jam.
And while Reptile does have its moments where it sounds a little bit sleepy, Clapton was still in his element compared to his earlier period. His time in the late 1970s was already overcome with addiction problems, but if ‘Wonderful Tonight’ was heightened by the drama of everything around him, ‘Believe in Life’ is the kind of earnest love song that Clapton had been trying to write for decades.
It may have taken the right person to come into his life, but Clapton counted the song among the greatest compositions of his career, saying, “That’s my favourite song, and it’s also current, because I wrote it about my wife. I like the fact that it’s kind of low-key, a little in-the-background thing, but I’m proud of that song, as much as anything of mine that’s more popular or well-known.” And the best part about the song is about him doing most of the talking with his guitar.
Clapton didn’t always have to be the best wordsmith, and there are definitely a few tunes in his back catalogue that can get pretty embarrassing, but there are also tunes like this where he lets the guitar turn into a voice for him. His licks on here don’t have to have the same weeping feeling that he did with The Beatles, but they’re exactly what’s needed for the song, especially in the intro, where he’s practically dancing around the changes.
‘Believe in Life’ isn’t really the kind of song that’s going to replace ‘Layla’ or ‘Cocaine’ in the setlist any time soon, but the statement that Clapton was trying to make here was about more than just a song. He wanted to broaden his range, and sometimes a love song to his other half was just what he needed to get out of the creative rut and remember why he picked up the guitar in the first place.
