“It’s tricky”: The song Eric Clapton was scared to play for years
Arguably, one of the most underrated rock bands of all time is Cream. That’s not me saying that people don’t like Cream, quite the opposite, but they had a huge impact on modern music, and a lot of what we recognise as rock and psychedelic rock was first established by Cream. Despite being such a pivotal part of music, they don’t seem to get the respect they deserve, hence why they are such an underrated band.
Musically, you have some of the most gifted artists in the world, each of which were capable of putting together some of the most exciting music that was available at the time. One of those pieces of music was ‘White Room’, a track that was written by Jack Bruce. Despite initially being slated by critics, it’s now recognised as a classic by the band.
Why has the song aged so well? You could start by talking about the lyrics. The words to the song were written by the poet Pete Brown, who penned the lyrics for other Cream songs such as ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’, ‘SWLABR’ and ‘I Feel Free’. The track was about a difficult relationship Brown was in at the time, but the location of the “white room” in question means the song is open to interpretation. Brown believes that might be why the song has continued to appeal to people.
“There was this kind of transitional period where I lived in this actual white room and was trying to come to terms with various things that were going on,” he said, “It’s a place where I stopped, I have up all drugs and alcohol at that time in 1967 as a result of being in the white room, so it was a kind of watershed period. That song’s like a kind of weird little movie: it changes perspectives all the time. That’s why it’s probably lasted – it’s got a kind of mystery to it.”
Another reason why the song might have proven to be successful for so long was because of Eric Clapton’s guitar solo. He used the wah pedal, which wasn’t a hugely popular effect at the time. Jimi Hendrix had started using it, and so a few guitarists tried to imitate him, but very few actually knew how to use the pedal effectively. Clapton was different in that regard, as he was able to use the pedal to its full effect and deliver a face-melting solo.
Clapton’s use of the wah pedal was so good that it was voted one of the second-best solos of all time to use a wah. What did it lose out to? ‘Voodoo Child’ by Hendrix, which I think we can all agree is a pretty worthy song to lose to.
Due to the complex nature of the guitar solo and the fact that the song came out shortly after Cream broke up, Clapton refrained from playing the song for over a decade. It wasn’t until he appeared on the Letterman Show that Paul Shaffer told the guitarist he should play it again. Clapton gave in to Shaffer’s request, and after a successful performance, incorporated it into more live sets moving forward.
“I started ‘White Room’ again, thanks to Paul Shaffer, when I sat in with him on the Letterman Show,” recalled Clapton, “He said, ‘Let’s do “White Room”’, and I said, ‘God, no’. But it sounded good, and it’s been back ever since. Maybe some others will come back, but I don’t know. It’s tricky to predict these things.”
