Eric Clapton and the only way he could make his favourite song even better
When you earn the nickname God at 20 years old, where do you possibly go from there? It’s not an apocryphal story either; the cult of personality surrounding Eric Clapton was that strong, though granted, I’ll never know for sure without access to a TARDIS. However, there are enough photographs from the time that show a 1960s London daubed in enough statements proclaiming The Yardbird’s whiz-kid’s divinity to make one wonder whether there was some blues-rock the Vatican responsible for it.
The answer, quite reasonably, is whatever the hell you want to do. You are, after all, omnipotent. Clapton cashed in on his Bluesbreakers and Yardbirds fame by forming Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, then gallivanting from there on out. Joining bands like Blind Faith, forming bands like Derek & The Dominos and playing as a sideman for the likes of George Harrison and John Lennon. All the while making solo records and the occasional disgustingly racist comment made in the haze of his all-consuming drug addictions.
The 1980s saw his personal demons send him plummeting to some of his lowest points. All the while his commercial fortunes were kept up by the sheer amount of 60s revivalism the 1980s brought to pop culture. If The Monkees were getting back together and having hits, then you can be certain that Clapton was going to have a piece of that pie, too. The 1990s, though, saw him hit his lowest and then his highest peak in his life and career. The former comes from the truly horrifying loss of his infant son Conor in 1991.
The Unplugged album that followed that tragedy and ‘Tears in Heaven’, the single written in Conor’s honour, saw Clapton scale heights of commercial success that not even he had experienced in his storied career. However, when asked by MSNBC about the one track he would keep on his iPod, Clapton has a curious answer. One of them is from the last studio album he released in the 20th century.
He replies, “I suppose something from Pilgrim. I mean, ‘Pilgrim’ is one of my favourite tracks. It had just about everything I’d want to do. If I was gonna go make a record right now, what kind of record would I like to make? Pilgrim with a live band instead of computers.” Released in 1998 and his first album of original material in a decade, the record was a colossal hit commercially. Not so much critically, though. Despite the songwriting being enough for Clapton to single it out above the entire rest of his career, the critics agreed with Clapton’s own assessment that the record just felt too processed and synthesized for its own good.
However, there’s some serious songwriting there. Especially taking into account how the song is essentially a tribute to the way he has always kept moving throughout his entire life and career. Through good times and bad, Clapton has moved through it, sometimes alone, sometimes with others.
While it may seem a little big-headed to pick the song that’s entirely about yourself as the pick of a career that spans half a century, perhaps we can give the guy a break on that fact. He spent that half century being called God after all, what’s a guy to do?
