TOP SONGS

Background

In 1966, George Harrison married Pattie Boyd, a model he met during the filming of A Hard Day's Night. During the late 1960s, Clapton and Harrison became firm friends. Clapton contributed guitar work on Harrison's song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on The Beatles' White Album but remained uncredited, and Harrison co-wrote and played guitar pseudonymously (as L'Angelo Misterioso) on Cream's "Badge" from Goodbye. However, trouble was brewing for Clapton. Between his tenures in Cream and Blind Faith, in his words, "something else quite unexpected was happening: I was falling in love with Pattie."^[4]

The title, "Layla", was inspired by the The Story of Layla / Layla and Majnun (ليلى ومجنون), by the Persian 12th century poet Nizami Ganjavi. It is based on the real story of a young man called Qays ibn al-Mulawwah (Arabic: قيس بن الملوح‎) from the northern Arabian Peninsula,[1] in the Umayyad era during the 7th century. When he wrote "Layla", Clapton had been told the story by his friend Ian Dallas^[4] who was in the process of converting to Islam. Nizami's tale, about a moon-princess who was married off by her father to someone other than the one who was desperately in love with her, resulting in his madness (Majnun, مجنون, meaning "madman" in Arabic), struck a deep chord with Clapton.^[5]

According to Boyd, Clapton played the song for her at a party, and later that same evening confessed to George that he was in love with his wife. The revelation caused no small upset between the three of them, but Pattie and George remained married for several more years, and Harrison and Clapton retained their close friendship with no apparent signs of damage.

Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Clapton in 1979 during a concert stop in Tucson, Arizona. Harrison was not bitter about the divorce and attended Clapton's wedding party with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. During their relationship, Clapton wrote another love ballad for her, "Wonderful Tonight." Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989 after several years of separation.