“I just wasn’t ready to let go”: The tragic song Eric Clapton almost couldn’t record
For many artists, their music is their diary, filled with some of their most personal musings, reframed in artistic formats for all to connect with and enjoy. Much of the time, this draws from different places, like internal disillusionment or failed relationships, or more abstract themes hinging on mental health struggles like anxiety and depression. Sometimes, these songs are so personal they don’t even make it into a recording studio. For Eric Clapton, one of these boundaries was losing his son.
“I felt like I had walked into someone else’s life,” Clapton said during a 1992 interview, recalling the moment he rushed over to find ambulances and fire engines surrounding the scene where his son had accidentally fallen to his death. This unthinkable tragedy caused Clapton’s world to come crashing around him, and the following months were lived out in solitude as the musician faced an enhanced period of sobriety as he focussed on his music.
During this time, Clapton wrote a handful of songs inspired by his grief, including ‘Circus’ and, of course, ‘Tears in Heaven’. Writing from the heart without knowing whether either of these would go very far, Clapton spilt his loss as if knowingly leaving a running tap gushing out, singing words about whether one day he will be given the virtue of reuniting with his son in heaven.
“Beyond the door / There’s peace, I’m sure / ‘Cause I know there’ll be no more / Tears in heaven,” Clapton sings, his voice barely a whisper as he navigates the weight of grief and its sudden ability to conceal vocal confidence. With delicate touches, the musician exercises restraint, almost like you’ve accidentally stumbled upon something not meant for your ears—almost like Clapton himself is unsure whether he wants us to hear him at all.
During this time, however, Clapton had no other expressive outlet, so he continued to write, allowing emotion to flood even in his quieter crooning. Although delivered with slightly less trepidation than ‘Tears in Heaven, ‘Circus’ also saw Clapton reflect on his relationship with his son by ruminating on the final night he spent by his side. “Hold my hand, and I’ll walk with you through the darkest night,” he professes, holding on to his son’s memory with severed promises.
While these two songs became instant favourites, another he wrote about his son, ‘My Father’s ‘Eyes’, almost didn’t venture beyond the scribbled lyrical notes Clapton formed during this immense period of grief. Although he experienced similar difficulties with ‘Circus’, his main problem with ‘My Father’s Eyes’ was that it felt impossible to arrange the song in a way that matched its themes and lyrical content, which tackled the unexpected positive outlook he gained following his son’s passing.
With ‘My Father’s Eyes’, Clapton ventured beyond the tragic realm of ‘Tears in Heaven’ and ‘Circus’ and reflected on how his son’s death forced him to reframe his perspective and feel closer to his own father. “He gave me something, what it might have been like to look in my father’s eyes because I looked in his eyes,” Clapton explained, adding, “I had a kind of revelation about my son. It’s a very personal matter but I never met my father and I realised that the closest I ever came to looking into my father’s eyes was when I looked into my son’s eyes.”
Explaining why he almost didn’t record the song, Clapton also said he almost couldn’t bring himself to do it because he thought it may not have been the most appropriate course of action considering how he takes his son’s death and spins it into a positive. Moreover, he struggled to place the lyrics into the right arrangement and felt that many of the iterations were too upbeat and happy, which didn’t sit right with him.
For these reasons, he admitted it was “the hardest song to record” and that ‘Circus’ was “a lot easier to let go of.” However, aside from the practical challenges, he also admitted why he found the whole thing more difficult to execute than the raw emotionality of something like ‘Tears in Heaven’: “Now I actually think, subconsciously, I just wasn’t ready to let go, because it meant — on some level — letting go of my son.”
