Clapton Quotes

“La tournée terminée, Tom et Roger pensèrent qu'après le succès de I Shot The Sheriff, ce serait bien de descendre dans les Caraïbes pour continuer sur le thème du reggae. Ils organisèrent un voyage en Jamaïque, où ils jugeaient qu'on pourrait fouiner un peu et puiser dans l'influence roots avant d'enregistrer. Tom croyait fermement au bienfait d'exploiter cette source, et je n'avais rien contre puisque ça voulait dire que Pattie et moi aurions une sorte de lune de miel. Kingston était une ville où il était fantastique de travailler. On entendant de la musique partout où on allait. Tout le monde chantait tout le temps, même les femmes de ménage à l'hotel. Ce rythme me rentrait vraiment dans le sang, mais enregistrer avec les Jamaïcains était une autre paire de manches.

Je ne pouvais vraiment pas tenir le rythme de leur consommation de ganja, qui était énorme. Si j'avais essayé de fumer autant ou aussi souvent, je serais tombé dans les pommes ou j'aurais eu des hallucinations. On travaillait aux Dynamic Sound Studios à Kingston. Des gens y entraient et sortaient sans arrêt, tirant sur d'énormes joints en forme de trompette, au point qu'il y avait tant de fumée dans la salle que je ne voyais pas qui était là ou pas. On composait deux chansons avec Peter Tosh qui, affalé sur une chaise, avait l'air inconscient la plupart du temps. Puis, soudain, il se levait et interprétait brillamment son rythme reggae à la pédale wah-wah, le temps d'une piste, puis retombait dans sa transe à la seconde où on s'arrêtait.”
― Eric Clapton, The Autobiography

“Early in my childhood, when I was about six or seven, I began to get the feeling that there was something different about me.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“Music became a healer for me, and I learned to listen with all my being. I found that it could wipe away all the emotions of fear and confusion relating to my family.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached. Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance. It has always found me, and with God’s blessing and permission, it always will.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“Watching him, I understood for the first time how you could really live music, how you could listen to it completely and make it come alive, so that it was part of your life.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“All I am certain of right now is that I don't want to go anywhere, and that's not bad for someone who always used to run.”
― Eric Clapton, Eric Clapton: The Autobiography

“The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure.”
― Eric Clapton, Eric Clapton: The Autobiography

“In terms of scale or stature, I believe that if Robert Johnson was reincarnated, he is probably BB King. Maybe it would be worth investigating the appropriate dates to see if this is even a remote possibility.”
― Eric Clapton, Eric Clapton: The Autobiography

“There seems to be a silent acknowledgment among most players that we have a certain responsibility as teachers or healers, and although we all have different ways of honoring this commitment, it is certainly something we are all aware of.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“The contrast between the empty hotel room and the roaring crowd in the auditorium can cause a lot of emotional confusion, too, but for the moment, that world could wait; I was safe with my loved ones again.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“It was good fun trying to find bars that were showing the qualifying games for the Cup, and watching the locals get into heated disputes. I’m convinced it’s all rigged anyway. I tend toward conspiracy phobia in all things of this nature, including politics. With the amount of money that’s at stake, I don’t believe the likes of Rupert Murdoch or George Bush are inclined to leave very much to chance. Call me cynical, but every other week someone gets caught or spills the beans.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“But in one or two essential elements, they had all been the same; always unavailable, sometimes unstable, and in terms of my sobriety, even dangerous. Were these the conditions that had governed my feelings about my mother, and was I still unconsciously trying to replicate that relationship? I think so. My low self-esteem had dictated all my choices. I had chosen what I knew and was comfortable with, but they had all been unworkable situations. I had done a lot of family-of-origin work in my recovery, but it seemed like I would never be able to break the mold.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“The only prewritten songs I had ready were “Circus” and “My Father’s Eyes,” neither of which seemed to have found their right incarnation yet. For almost a year we worked day and night, sometimes just perfecting little guitar motifs, or honing and reshaping tracks with the Pro Tools system that Simon is a master of. The result was one of my favorite albums; I poured my soul into this one, and I believe you can hear that.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“We managed to persuade Giorgio Armani to let us do the music for one of his fashion shows, and took that and turned it into an album called Retail Therapy. We called ourselves T.D.F., for Totally Dysfunctional Family, and”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“One of the songs I wrote while living there was called “Tearing Us Apart,” which was about “the committee,” the group of Pattie’s friends whom I now blamed for coming between us.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“They were full of pictures of Lori with famous men—footballers, actors, politicians, musicians, anyone with any kind of notoriety. I noticed that she struck the same pose in every photograph, wearing the sort of smile that wasn’t really a smile at all. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“They sent me three songs written by a Texas songwriter they represented named Jerry Lynn Williams—“Forever Man,” “Something’s Happening,” and “See What Love Can Do”—and they were good. I loved the way he sang, and I sent back a message to say I would do it, on the condition that they produced the songs and provided the musicians. I think it was, professionally, the first time I’d ever had to back down.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“I had no idea how to do that, because I was either above or below everybody. I was either towering above as Clapton the guitar virtuoso, or cringing on the floor, because if you took away my guitar and my musical career, then I was nothing.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“One night we were sitting in the great room at Hurtwood when he said, “Well, I suppose I’d better divorce her,” to which I replied, “Well, if you divorce her, then that means I’ve got to marry her!” It was like a scene from a Woody Allen film. Over the years, our relationship developed into a sort of cagey brotherliness, with him, of course, being the elder brother. There was no doubt that we loved one another, but when we actually got together it could get quite competitive and tense, and I very rarely got the last word.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“A post-psychedelia drunkenness seemed to sweep over everybody in the entertainment business during the early seventies.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“Though I didn’t meet Bob Marley till much later, he did call me up when the single came out and seemed pretty happy with it. I tried to ask him what the song was all about, but couldn’t understand much of his reply. I was just relieved that he liked what we had done.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“Let It Grow,” and it was several years before I realized that I had totally ripped off “Stairway to Heaven,” the famous Zeppelin anthem, a cruel justice seeing as how I’d always been such a severe critic of theirs.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“never occurred to me that perhaps I wasn’t responsible for everything that happened in the world.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“To this day I would say that the bass player Carl Radle and the drummer Jimmy Gordon are the most powerful rhythm section I have ever played with. They were absolutely brilliant. When people say that Jim Gordon is the greatest rock ’n’ roll drummer who ever lived, I think it’s true, beyond anybody.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“Delaney turned me on to so many things. He played me the music of J. J. Cale, which was to become an enormous influence.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“When we arrived in Toronto it was raining, and we were standing around waiting for the luggage when a huge limo rolled up, and John and Yoko jumped into it and drove away, leaving the rest of us standing there without a clue as to what to do next. “Well, that’s nice,” I thought. In the end we got in the van with the luggage, which I deemed a bit sad, as I felt we deserved a little more respect than that.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“For me, going on after Delaney & Bonnie was really, really tough because I thought they were miles better than us. Their”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“There were too many Cream and Traffic fans around for that, and the truth is we didn’t really know or care which we were. Looking back, I realize that from the start I knew that this was not what I really wanted to do, but I was lazy. Instead of putting more time and effort into making the band into what I thought it ought to be, I opted instead for the laid-back approach, which was just to look for something else that already had an identity.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“When things began to go badly wrong between me and Alice, I had a terrible fear that getting attached to an upper-class girl like her was part of a childhood resentment, connected to my feelings about my mother, to bring down women, and that deep inside I was thinking, “Here’s an Ormsby-Gore, and I’m going to make her suffer.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography

“also coveted Pattie because she belonged to a powerful man who seemed to have everything I wanted—amazing cars, an incredible career, and a beautiful wife.”
― Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography