The one song Eric Clapton can’t stand listening to: ‘I have zero tolerance’
The entire story of Eric Clapton can really be summed up on every record that he’s ever put out.
Sure, there are tons of documentaries and books that have pored over his life story and gone into great detail about the hardships that he’s faced, but in the first few seconds of him tearing into a solo, you can hear every single emotion he’s feeling at that particular moment, be it love, lust, sorrow, or happiness. But for someone who has been playing the blues for over half their life, it’s not like Clapton has made everything sound absolutely perfect every time he went into the studio, either.
If anything, listening to him play in The Yardbirds was one of the bigger embarrassments of his career for a long time before breaking out on his own. Clapton wanted to play the real version of the blues, and by the time that his band started making tunes like ‘For Your Love’, the whole thing felt like one big candified version of what their music was supposed to be. That wasn’t what Clapton was looking for, and for him, working with John Mayall switched everything to the other side of the spectrum.
‘Slowhand’ was finally free to be himself, and when listening to those first few bars on ‘Steppin’ Out’, it was clear that he was finally at home playing the music he wanted to play. Then again, Clapton was a free agent around this time, and the minute that he got bored, it wasn’t crazy for him to drop what he was doing and move on to something else, eventually leaving the Bluesbreakers altogether to begin work with Cream.
And once they started jamming, Clapton quickly got an education of what he was up against. Here were two of the greatest players in the industry, and while they may have leaned further into genres like jazz whenever they played, Clapton was more than willing to follow them wherever they went, to the point where their jams felt like three band members soloing at the same time.
But between all of the personal flare-ups that happened between Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, Clapton’s biggest gripe usually came down to his own playing. He could always be his worst critic whenever talking about his screwups, and while ‘Crossroads’ is still regarded as a classic among all rock and roll enthusiasts, the guitarist felt it would be better if the entire world forgot about his performance that turned up on Wheels of Fire.
Since Clapton’s amp was too loud and distracted him from the tempo of the song, he felt absolutely no desire to listen to the whole thing again, saying, “I don’t think about it at all [laughs]. I certainly put that one to bed quickly! I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material. Especially ‘Crossroads’. The popularity of that song with Cream has always been mystifying to me. I don’t think it’s very good.”
If it’s true that Clapton really got distracted that badly, it will probably go down as one of the fortunate screwups in music history. Anyone else would have been fumbling their way through the rest of the record trying their best to get anything to sound right, but leave it to ‘Slowhand’ to manage being on the wrong beat of the bar and still find a way to play so fluidly that hardly anyone noticed.
There might be a few black marks on the record, but when this is concerned one of the biggest mistakes of someone’s career, it’s safe to say they’ve still done better than 90% of most other guitarists. Anyone could have spent time making cheap imitations of ‘Crossroads’, but the reason why the original works so well is because you can hear those technical glitches adding to the tune.
