Eric Clapton

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 10:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a musician and a rock star. At the age of nine he discovered that his parents were in fact his grandparents. The guitar he was brought as compensation for this revelation turned out to be one of the most significant events in his life.

Presenter0:44

In the heady days of the sixties he commanded a huge following, playing in such groups as the Yard Birds, Cream, and Blind Faith.

Presenter0:52

Drugs and later drink disrupted his career, but he always remained a musician who enjoyed dedicated support from his fans. He is now forty four drugs and drink seem to be behind him, and his career is once more successful and lucrative. He is Eric

Presenter1:10

Also known as Slohan Clapton, once upon a time. Why was that, Eric?

Eric Clapton1:14

I think it was um a pun on the name Clapton, slow hand clap, that's the only reason I can think of ever having it.

Presenter1:21

also known blasphemously as God, I think.

Eric Clapton1:24

Well, that was um, I think a term of endearment back in the old days. It was the only way they that the young kids could think of um.

Eric Clapton1:32

Giving me the ultimate credit, really, I suppose. I never took it seriously, though.

Presenter1:37

But you don't like you don't much care for being idolized, do you?

Eric Clapton1:41

Well, of course my ego responds very well to it, but it it actually it gives you a lot to live up to in the end. I mean it's nice to begin with, but then you find that there are expectations attached which you can never live up to.

Presenter1:53

But is there an element in which, having known now great fame, and having been idealised, that if you had your choice again you would prefer anonymity?

Eric Clapton2:04

I would prefer to be a acknowledged as a good musician, I I think, and then have the anonymity of a private life. But that's an impossible, it's a utopian dream. So

Presenter2:17

We can't have one without the other.

Eric Clapton2:18

You can't have one without the other, unfortunately. People won't let you have it that way.

Presenter2:22

Well, we should come clean from the start and reveal that there is no question of what your luxury is on this island, is there?

Eric Clapton2:28

Well, I assumed when I was asked about that that that would be automatically mine, so I was going to choose either a Versace suit so that I could dress up.

Eric Clapton2:36

once a month and pretend I was back in society or

Eric Clapton2:40

a Ferrari so I could drive around the island. But of course uh it was pointed out to me that a guitar would be a luxury.

Eric Clapton2:46

So I have to plump for that, yeah.

Presenter2:48

However, there is not one to be heard on the first piece of music you've chosen, is there?

Eric Clapton2:53

No, there isn't, because um I find that when I'm working regularly and hard, as I have been for the last few years, that I tend to listen to music which is completely divorced from what I do. And that at the moment and the for the last year or so has been opera.

Eric Clapton3:08

Um I love Puccini.

Eric Clapton3:10

I love Italian opera in general and a

Eric Clapton3:13

I find it gives me great tranquillity to listen to and uh it's very moving.

Presenter3:17

So what are you gonna have, which bit?

Eric Clapton3:19

Well, I'd like the Senza Mamma aria from Soir Angelica, which is part of his Iltritico.

Eric Clapton3:26

and is uh a very, very beautiful aria about a sister who finds that her illegitimate son has died.

Eric Clapton3:33

It's just the most moving and beautiful melody. It grow I didn't actually respond too well the first time I heard it, I thought it was quite plain, but the more and more I listen to it, the stronger it gets.

Speaker 23:58

Without it,

Speaker 13:58

Without it.

Speaker 24:01

Oh no, make this life.

Speaker 14:02

Yeah.

Speaker 24:07

Safe reward.

Speaker 14:11

Yeah.

Speaker 24:17

Black C.

Speaker 24:19

Looking for King James.

Presenter4:47

The Aria Senza Mamma from Puccini's Soi Angelica, sung by Renato Scotto, with the new Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lauren Marzle. Music which reminds you, Eric Clapton, I think, of your origins. Can you explain that?

Eric Clapton5:01

Well, it's similar in some respects that um

Eric Clapton5:05

Uh my mother left when I was very, very young and I was raised by my grandparents unknowingly until a later age.

Eric Clapton5:15

The funny thing was that when I heard this piece of music I had no idea of the story, but it had a very profound effect on me, and I it was only later when I examined the libretto that it was

Eric Clapton5:25

Um, a very, very parallel story. I kind of listen to it and I feel what my mother must have felt and the agony of kind of growing, you know, watching me grow from a distance and not being able to take part in that.

Presenter5:37

But can you remember what that moment was like for you when you were, I think, nine years old, and your

Eric Clapton5:42

Very, very confusing because I knew that I was different and I didn't know why. I mean, I knew that other kids at school regarded me as different or maybe inferior. And I did have a massive inferiority complex as an adolescent.

Eric Clapton5:56

And I I chose

Eric Clapton5:59

To conquer that by playing the guitar. It was my haven. Your music was my haven in my teenage years. It gave you strength. It gave me strength and it was my friend.

Presenter6:05

It gave you strength.

Eric Clapton6:08

And it was something I

Eric Clapton6:10

Could excel in at an early age that other people couldn't. You know, it was mine, it belonged to me.

Presenter6:17

How old were you when you eventually met your mother, as it were knowing she was your mother?

Eric Clapton6:21

I think I was about nine about nine years old and uh it was very traumatic and uh it took me a long time to get over. In fact, I still probably think it's it's not dealt with properly yet. It takes you all your life, really.

Presenter6:32

Okay.

Presenter6:33

Did you get on with her? Do you get on with it?

Eric Clapton6:34

Very, very well. But we have a different relationship to most mother and uh and uh between mother and child. It's more like brother and sister,'cause she was very young when I was born.

Eric Clapton6:45

So we're actually just great pals more than anything else. Although I know she still feels that maternal thing.

Presenter6:54

So at the time, as you say, you took recourse into your music, into this guitar which you were given as w as as a kind of sop in a way.

Eric Clapton7:01

Yeah.

Presenter7:02

So it was kind of you and your guitar against the world, was it?

Eric Clapton7:05

Yeah. And me and anything against the world. I before that I was very fond of painting and drawing and uh it was anything that was introverted.

Presenter7:13

Were you a very nice little boy?

Eric Clapton7:15

No.

Eric Clapton7:16

I don't think not so I don't think I was. People say I was pretty spoilt and I was selfish and um

Eric Clapton7:23

I'm sure I must have had some qualities, but not from what I hear.

Presenter7:27

Shall we have your second record? What is it?

Eric Clapton7:29

That's the um duet from The Pearlfishers. I heard this on Two Way Family Favourites when I was a kid.

Eric Clapton7:36

I never knew then what it was about, but I just loved the melody and its the harmonies, the way they intertwine.

Eric Clapton7:42

a beautiful and it's something I you know, I you can even relate to to rock and roll or whatever, any kind of music. And then I later found out, um, it was about two friends swearing their friendship forever, no matter what. And it turned out they were both in love with the same woman, but they didn't know at the time, and I suppose that was uh that got the better of them. But

Eric Clapton8:03

The song really expresses brotherly love, I think, in a wonderful way.

Speaker 28:10

On a survivor.

Speaker 28:17

Isio or waiver.

Speaker 28:21

La Four Hit the Jonou.

Speaker 28:28

Peace and wild sand on the assembly.

Speaker 28:35

He is one of the love.

Speaker 28:43

He's the answer.

Speaker 29:04

Ah

Presenter9:09

The duet Au Fant du Temp Plessin from The Pearlfishers by Bizet, sung by Ernest Blanc and Nicolai Gedda a duet, as you said, Eric, about two men swearing eternal friendship. And again, that's a parallel in your life, I think, with George Harrison, is it not?

Eric Clapton9:24

Yeah, it worked out that way, yes. We were friends, um

Eric Clapton9:28

From the mid-sixties I did a Beatles show at Hammersmith when I was with the Yardbirds and we became fast friends and

Eric Clapton9:34

I think uh for me it was great to have a friend who was famous and worldly because he became very worldly very quickly and he was slightly older, so he was a bit like an older brother.

Eric Clapton9:45

And he liked me, I think, because of my dedication to the blues and uh

Eric Clapton9:50

and rock and roll and we had a lot in common.

Eric Clapton9:54

And then I met his when he married Patty, I met her, and I fell.

Eric Clapton9:58

blisteringly in love with Patty, and uh that went on in an unrequited way for so many years. And then when their marriage was on the rocks,

Eric Clapton10:07

We started seeing one another and um

Eric Clapton10:10

She finally left him uh many years later. I mean, it was on the boil for so long.

Eric Clapton10:17

But at the same time, George when I told him about it, he his attitude amazed me because it was well, if that's what it's got to be, that's what it's got to be, you know, as long as we're still friends, because that's the important part.

Eric Clapton10:28

The love is for Patty is still there, and always will be, you know. But the love for George was never ever.

Eric Clapton10:35

It never waned, you know.

Presenter10:36

But you you married Patty, of course, in the end

Eric Clapton10:38

We married and we're gonna have to bother.

Presenter10:39

Patty Boyd, in in nineteen seventy nine.

Eric Clapton10:40

1979 and we broke up four years ago. We're still great friends, but

Eric Clapton10:46

The strongest thing really was that George and I remained friends.

Presenter10:50

Let's go back still though to those early days before all of that, before the turmoil of love, before the fame.

Eric Clapton10:55

Doom f.

Presenter10:57

You were an art student in Kingston, in Surrey, by day, and you practiced your guitar by night.

Eric Clapton10:59

And so

Eric Clapton11:02

And sometimes my day. In fact, that's why I got thrown out of art school because I used to practice.

Presenter11:04

Uh

Eric Clapton11:07

At school.

Presenter11:09

What sort of music were you into then?

Eric Clapton11:10

I was into the blues from an early age, as well as everything else that you would hear on Two Way Family Favorites. You'd hear the occasional Lead Belly song or Big Bill Brunzy or Chuck Berry, you know, and I heard

Eric Clapton11:25

Funny enough, I heard Memphis, Tennessee, by Chuck Berry on Uncle Mac's programme on Saturday morning. I couldn't believe it.

Presenter11:31

Hello, children, everyone.

Eric Clapton11:32

Yeah, along with the the runaway train came over the hill, he would play the odd chap. I thought this is a strange guy, but it was really the turning point for me. And I then went on a pilgrimage to record shops and

Eric Clapton11:44

bought every R and B and blues record I could buy and

Eric Clapton11:48

I would study them at home.

Eric Clapton11:51

And learn as much as I could by ear. In fact, that's been my method all my life.

Eric Clapton11:56

I decided that I was going to be a blues player. It had the most.

Eric Clapton12:01

Profound effect on me, the most dramatic effect of all the musics I listened to. And I felt in a way that it was something I could.

Eric Clapton12:08

Pick up.

Presenter12:10

Shall we have your third record there?

Eric Clapton12:11

Yes, that would be in fact one of the the deepest of all the blues records in my life that I've heard is um Robert Johnson singing Crossroads, which um I do a version of too and I have done for many years, but

Eric Clapton12:26

For me, he's the most disturbing and the almost the hardest to listen to of all the Boo Singers because it is such emotionally.

Eric Clapton12:35

Charged music.

Eric Clapton12:36

and musically

Eric Clapton12:38

Although it may not sound like it to the uninitiated, it's musically the most complicated.

Eric Clapton12:44

Style of blues playing, there is, I think.

Speaker 212:47

I went through this also.

Speaker 212:51

Well done, oh my name

Speaker 213:04

I went to the draw.

Presenter13:15

Robert Johnson's Crossroads Blues.

Presenter13:17

What did you look like at that stage of your career, Eric, when you formed the Yard Birds? Describe yourself.

Eric Clapton13:23

I used to love Ivy League.

Eric Clapton13:26

Fashion.

Eric Clapton13:27

I used to like those Madras tartan jackets and loafers and white socks and blue jeans and uh button down collar shirts.

Presenter13:36

You went into the kind of pink boots and frizzy hair later on.

Eric Clapton13:40

That was later. That was the psychedelic period. That was the sixty yeah, that was the sixty seven look. Um, when we formed cream, um, we were just I mean, I had strings of beads around my neck, you wouldn't believe, and

Eric Clapton13:52

Pink boots and hair down to my navel and God knows what.

Presenter13:57

And now it's kind of a neat beard and baggy Armani suit.

Eric Clapton14:01

Yeah, much more casual and much more comfortable.

Presenter14:04

But but for for a sort of a shy man who doesn't particularly court fame, you're quite kind of fashion conscious.

Eric Clapton14:04

Yeah.

Eric Clapton14:11

Well, I've always been mad on clothes. I think the first pocket money I ever had I spent on a second hand suit, pinstriped suit, and got my grand to alter it so that it fit nicely.

Eric Clapton14:22

That's when we used to go to the Hammersmith Pally and stand around and watch the girls dance. But it was a certain way to look.

Eric Clapton14:29

was a way to look, you know.

Presenter14:31

Anyway, there you were with the Yardbirds, and you had a a hit single for your love, which we remember, and and then you you called the whole thing off and you quit, or they asked you to leave, or whatever it was. But that was really you, wasn't it, wanting to be and do something quite else.

Eric Clapton14:35

Which we don't know.

Eric Clapton14:44

Well, up until then we'd been doing cover versions of R and B records, and suddenly we were doing this pop song, and I hated it. I mean, it's easy for me to look back on it now and not be so critical, but at the time I loathed that song. It represented everything I didn't want to be.

Eric Clapton15:00

And I felt that I had to stand my ground.

Presenter15:03

But it was a hit and it was successful.

Eric Clapton15:05

I didn't want a bloody hit. I've actually, I've never wanted hits, to be honest with you. I recognise.

Eric Clapton15:10

That the they're necessary, but it's not ever been an ambition of mine to be top of the charts. It's not important.

Presenter15:18

That sounds fine coming from you now, from where you stand now, but at the at the time when you were kind of nineteen, twenty years old, it must have sounded deeply arrogant.

Eric Clapton15:26

Yes, I'm sure it did, and actually that is very the word that most of the people that knew me at that time used to sum me up. If you hadn't heard, for instance, Robert Johnson singing Crossroad Blues, I didn't want to know you.

Eric Clapton15:38

Simple as that.

Eric Clapton15:40

You know, it was totally tunnel vision, but I mean, I I it served me well in my apprenticeship and building the foundations.

Eric Clapton15:49

for my work, really, that I should be like that.

Eric Clapton15:53

All through my twenties that's the way I was.

Presenter15:56

Now we're going to hear from one of your other great heroes of the time, I think, aren't we?

Eric Clapton15:59

Muddy Waters was I think the biggest influence on me in that he seemed to epitomize the consummate blues musician and

Eric Clapton16:09

In another way, he was a great person to be able to admire because he wasn't a degenerate, you know, he wasn't into dope and he wasn't.

Eric Clapton16:18

He was very straight.

Eric Clapton16:20

A tranquil man, almost like a Buddha figure, when you met him. He was like a tribal chief or something.

Eric Clapton16:29

For me he was a great person to follow and and I met him and and we worked together and uh we got on very well but his music was a very strong part of my upbringing.

Speaker 216:41

Well now getting late over in the evening I feel like

Speaker 216:46

Like blowing my home.

Speaker 216:49

When I woke up this morning, all I

Speaker 216:52

I have a gon I get

Speaker 216:55

Late over in the evening, man, I feel like blowing my hole.

Presenter17:06

Well now

Presenter17:07

Woke up this morning.

Presenter17:09

Muddy waters feel like going home. Muddy waters who was your hero? Eric, you said.

Presenter17:15

But who was um

Presenter17:17

Not degenerate and not into dope, which is where you ended up. How did that happen?

Eric Clapton17:22

It was a combination of things, I think. I'd always been dabbling with drugs. E as a teenage, we used to take these things called black bombers, you know, to stay up all night.

Eric Clapton17:31

And I think I smoked a bit of pot during the 60s. But then a culmination of events happened with falling in love with Patty.

Eric Clapton17:40

and the hopelessness of that situation early on.

Eric Clapton17:44

And then losing my grandfather. He died of a stroke and I started taking heavy drugs about a month within the death of my grandfather. And I'd see now as I look back that it had a lot to do with the pain of

Eric Clapton17:55

losing this man that I was unaware of the fact that I adored him.

Eric Clapton17:59

You know, as a father figure, and suddenly he wasn't there anymore.

Eric Clapton18:04

And I found myself taking um

Eric Clapton18:07

Heroin

Presenter18:08

But how did you um graduate, as it were, from from cocaine into heroin?

Eric Clapton18:13

Um

Eric Clapton18:14

I think the the dealer that I was buying these things from said that I could I was trying to buy I was buying cocaine and um

Eric Clapton18:22

He would say, Well, I'll sell you some of this, but you've got to buy some of this as well. So I would buy this little file of heroin and put it in a drawer. And I found that, you know, after a while, I had a drawer full of this stuff. And I thought, well, one day,

Eric Clapton18:34

Give it a try, and I did, and I was hooked. I mean, I didn't know I was hooked, and that's the unfortunate part about drugs: you don't know and you deny.

Eric Clapton18:43

All through it you can go into denial.

Eric Clapton18:46

And uh

Eric Clapton18:47

Suddenly you find that if you try and stop you can't.

Presenter18:50

So you became a total junkie, totally hooked, you became a recluse, you shut yourself away in your house in Surrey.

Eric Clapton18:55

You shut

Eric Clapton18:56

New class.

Eric Clapton18:57

Yeah.

Presenter18:58

What happened?

Eric Clapton18:59

Well, thank God I'd never resorted to taking it intravenously. I'd never used a needle and uh

Eric Clapton19:06

Because I think that makes it twice as difficult to break. What did you do then?

Presenter19:09

Come on.

Eric Clapton19:10

I just sniffed it up my nose. That's the normal way.

Eric Clapton19:14

But um

Eric Clapton19:16

I came to a point where I realized that it was me surviving or it was the drug surviving. And I went to see someone that that was recommended, a lady by the name of Meg Patterson, who'd had a

Eric Clapton19:27

A remarkable career in Hong Kong curing addicts at the very source of where it comes from.

Eric Clapton19:34

She had a method which appealed to me because it reduced the withdrawal symptoms electronically with a kind of hybrid acupuncture system where you put little needles in your ears. Well, they don't really seem to puncture the skin, then they pass a very, very small electric current through and it has the effect of making you very tranquil and

Eric Clapton19:56

and sedated.

Eric Clapton19:58

And after about three or four weeks, you're actually free of all the withdrawal symptoms.

Eric Clapton20:03

In my case I was left with a massive vacuum.

Eric Clapton20:07

A spiritual and emotional vacuum which I chose to fill with alcohol.

Eric Clapton20:13

Um pretty soon after stopping taking heroin I started to drink quite a lot and that of course

Eric Clapton20:20

gained momentum as well.

Presenter20:22

And when you look back on all of that now, I mean, do you entirely understand you sound as if you understand exactly why and how it happened or do you look back and think, My God, what wasted years

Eric Clapton20:33

I think it's very foolish to do that. I think it term because you can end up with too much regret and that can be overbearing, you know, and uh and make you bitter. I don't particularly relish that time, but it just happened and I can't change the past.

Eric Clapton20:49

So, it's just I try to live in the moment as much as possible, you know.

Presenter20:54

Let's have some more music.

Eric Clapton20:55

Hmm.

Eric Clapton20:56

This um Stevie Wonder, I Was Made to Love Her happened, I don't know, it seemed to be a changing point in music for me. Um I heard it in the sixties.

Eric Clapton21:05

And the bass the bass playing in this song by Jamie Jamieson changed R and B and rock and roll radically overnight, I think.

Speaker 221:14

Faith to love, worship in the dark.

Speaker 221:24

All through thinking then I love just one in Cause I love my baby Love the baby

Speaker 221:33

Looking lovely, my favourite needs me, and I know I ain't gonna

Presenter21:41

Stevie Wonder, I was made to love her.

Presenter21:44

There seems, Eric, to have been so much turmoil in your life, the the childhood shock and frustrated love and drugs and drink, as you've just said. Perhaps you're quite simply one of those people who attracts

Eric Clapton21:55

But it attracts trouble.

Presenter21:56

Yeah.

Eric Clapton21:57

I yeah, I think you may be right. Even now my private life is i in complete chaos and it probably always will be. And I'm I'm stricken with this disease of being, I dunno, ill content. You know, it's like the minute I start to see a satisfying situation, I'll do something myself to u upset the apple cart. And maybe it's a subconscious thing and I don't seem to have any control over it at all.

Presenter22:20

Perhaps you even need trouble. Perhaps you you need turmoil so that you can create. There's a good excuse.

Eric Clapton22:26

That's a good excuse, yeah. Yeah, that's a good rationalization, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's but then you see, that's if I accepted that, then I accept the fact that I need drugs and drink to be a suffering genius. And I can't really accept all that. I have to.

Presenter22:28

Yeah.

Eric Clapton22:41

really look on it um as maybe just that I never grew up and now I'm starting to and it'll probably I'll grow up too late but

Eric Clapton22:50

I mean, life is getting better for me now and it's calming down a lot to compare to what it was. And the fact that I don't take any substances anymore is a lot better for me. And I wake up every day feeling fresh and uh a little calmer. But

Eric Clapton23:05

I don't think it'll ever really resolve. I think I'm just a kind of wanderer, you know.

Presenter23:09

They say that that when you play, occasionally you can make time stop in its tracks. Now that's hyperbole, but certainly there is a a preeminence about your playing. Is it possible to to describe how how you feel?

Presenter23:24

When you are playing, you sometimes close your eyes and go away somewhere.

Eric Clapton23:28

I do, yeah, I do. And then for me time stands still and I can I I go into a trance like state.

Eric Clapton23:35

And uh from what I hear and I gather that I people come with me.

Eric Clapton23:39

And there's nothing better on earth for me than being in a concert situation where

Eric Clapton23:45

you can take a whole audience out of themselves for m the briefest possible even just a moment. It's it's a glorious experience when two thousand, three thousand, four thousand people as one

Eric Clapton23:58

Just leave themselves and forget where they are, who they are, and just go into this joyous.

Eric Clapton24:05

State.

Eric Clapton24:06

It's something I regard as a great gift.

Presenter24:09

Pete Tansend of The Who once made the comment that that you should have been black, such as your your natural talent for playing the blues. Do you feel that it is an entirely natural talent? Where do you feel it's come from?

Eric Clapton24:22

I go along with Pete in some of that in that I think I identified m strongly with black music from an early age, and I still do prefer to listen

Eric Clapton24:32

to black music, but

Eric Clapton24:34

Like for me, it doesn't really have a colour, and I don't think it's got to do with pigment. I think it's got to do with.

Eric Clapton24:41

soul of any kind and the depth of suffering or the depth of feeling. For me, music is all about that. It's to do with if it makes me feel good or bad.

Eric Clapton24:52

As long as it has an effect on me, then I like it. But for me, it has been something I that's easy to identify, and that American black music was something that I

Eric Clapton25:01

just latched on to and followed.

Eric Clapton25:04

But and I wished for a while when I was young that I'd been born black.

Presenter25:07

Let's have your sixth record.

Eric Clapton25:09

Which is Ray Charles Singing Hard Times and um this is one of his early recordings that not many people have heard and I just think is a masterpiece.

Eric Clapton25:18

Yeah.

Speaker 225:18

My mother told me.

Speaker 225:25

Before she passed away

Speaker 225:29

Sits on when I'm gone

Speaker 225:34

Don't forget to pray, cause there'll be hard times.

Speaker 125:36

Okay.

Speaker 225:41

For time

Speaker 225:43

Whoa, yeah.

Presenter25:45

Yeah.

Presenter25:48

Ray Charles, hard times. You have so many heroes, it seems, Eric. Um Ray Charles, muddy waters, Nelton John, I think. You've said he's a genius.

Eric Clapton25:56

He's a genius. I think he's great, yes. I think he's wonderful and such a prolific songwriter, too. And all of his songs.

Eric Clapton26:04

mean something to me. I I'm funnily enough, we've been pals for a long time too, and I've just I've always watched

Eric Clapton26:11

Him grow, and you know, I just think he's a great piano player and a great singer.

Presenter26:16

You also have a a lot of good friends who happen to be famous, and we've mentioned some of them, George Harrison, Pete Townsend, Phil Collins, of course, as well, all of whom did their best to help you when you were down. They even considered kidnapping you, I think, to get you away from um your source of drugs. You must be very touched to have such good mates.

Eric Clapton26:35

I had no idea I had them until they were until the time came. That's the great thing about friends is that they show up when you need them, you know. And uh it is funny that um

Eric Clapton26:45

that even though they all stood by me, I still went back to that bloody drug, you know. I mean, they'd made me do this show and we rehearsed and everything and it was at the rainbow and I did the show and then afterwards I went straight back into addiction. So you can have the biggest

Eric Clapton26:59

Debt of gratitude to your friends in the world, but still, to stop doing these things, you've actually got to want to do it for yourself first.

Presenter27:06

And did you pause and have the thought that you were letting them down after all the effort they put in?

Eric Clapton27:10

When I'd come clean and when I was straight again, then I was able to look at it clearly. But at the time they were a nuisance.

Presenter27:18

What about Patty then? I mean,'cause you having married her, as we said, about ten years ago and and you divorced her last year, I mean, she tried to help you too, and yet you took to the drink and she was there and you said you loved her and you said she was everything that you wanted.

Eric Clapton27:30

That you love to

Eric Clapton27:32

Absolutely. But I mean, the drink I think more than drugs is a very, very powerful um hypnotic and and anesthetic. And you will say all kinds of things um as long as you can have your other another drink. You know, it becomes more important than everything. It was the most important relationship in a way I ever had, more important than my marriage or anything else. They could all have gone to the wall as long as I had the bottle.

Presenter27:59

And perhaps because of all of that you you lost Patty, who was the inspiration for so much of your music, wasn't she?

Eric Clapton28:05

Yes, yes. And still is, mind you. I don't think it's right to look back and close the door. You know, she was the greatest love in my life up until now, and uh I still write about that. I've wr just written and recorded a song called Old Love, which is basically about being haunted by the specter of a love that won't die, you know.

Eric Clapton28:27

It's something I live with and but but I see Patty quite often, and we're actually better friends now that we're apart.

Presenter28:33

But do you hope she'll come back one day?

Eric Clapton28:35

I don't think it's possible, really. I don't think it's good to look I used to think when I was drinking that uh more about the past than I did about the future, but now I try, as I said earlier, uh to live in the the present and um I think it's a big mistake to have one foot in yesterday and a day in tomorrow, because you have of course

Presenter28:52

You have, of course, these days uh someone else to tug at your heart, and that's a a small son who lives for the most part with his mother in in in Italy. What effect has fatherhood had on you?

Eric Clapton29:00

Yeah.

Eric Clapton29:03

a very stabilizing effect because you suddenly have to stop being so selfish, you have to think more about the life of someone else. It is like a blood thing that um it's never happened to me before. I mean relationships and friends, you can walk away from them really without

Eric Clapton29:19

Feeling too much regret. That's when it's blood, it's completely different.

Eric Clapton29:24

It's a tie for the rest of your life and and not one that hurts, you know. It's uh it's just there. It's it's biochemical. And I love him dearly, and uh really he's made a massive change in me.

Presenter29:38

Let's have your seventh record.

Eric Clapton29:41

To introduce this, I should really say that what we've been listening to is music that I love, but in terms of music that I could play, the first time I ever heard guitar playing that I thought I could master or at least approach was from this man, Freddie King, and this was when I was around 17. I heard him play a style of guitar that I thought I could approach and conquer. And I in fact went that way. That's the way I play guitar is completely derived from the way that this man plays. And this is a song called I Love the Woman.

Speaker 230:15

Yes, I love the woman.

Speaker 230:22

And learn the lessons that I cable yet.

Speaker 230:31

Yeah, she's made a jizya.

Speaker 230:36

And now my life is in a solid mess.

Presenter30:45

Freddie King, I love the woman.

Presenter30:47

So, Eric, as we said, you've kicked the drugs, you've conquered the drink. What do you do for fun these days?

Eric Clapton30:53

I play cricket, I go fishing, I I love driving my car. I've always loved motor racing. I loved motor racing as a kid, but I love Ferraris, and I love the the the Ferraris they made for road use, you know, the touring cars and

Eric Clapton31:08

If I had more space and if I'd if I'd been more wise over the years I would have a huge collection by now. But I've only I've got five, and I don't think that's many actually. I really don't, because I've actually owned in my in my life, I've probably owned twenty or thirty, but I've always sold one to buy another.

Eric Clapton31:27

And if I had been wise I would have kept them all and been a multi, multi millionaire.

Presenter31:32

Instead of just a millionaire.

Eric Clapton31:33

And wrist watch

Presenter31:33

What I do.

Presenter31:34

And wrist watches. You're hooked on wrist watches, aren't you?

Eric Clapton31:37

I love wristwatches, yes. I think I anything that's made with love and care and precision attracts me.

Presenter31:44

None of which you can have on this island we're sending you to at all. How are you going to manage there?

Eric Clapton31:47

Yeah.

Eric Clapton31:50

I do like solitude and I like isolation. In vast quantities it might be too much, but I think for a while I'll get on very well.

Presenter31:57

And what would you do for turmoil, for trouble?

Eric Clapton32:01

Well, that's it. I'd be free of trouble, wouldn't I?

Presenter32:03

But I wonder at the end of the day, Eric Clapton, if you really want to be free of trouble.

Eric Clapton32:08

I don't know if I will be. I would like to be, but I don't know if I ever will.

Presenter32:13

Shall we have your eighth record, the last one?

Eric Clapton32:15

And that is uh um

Eric Clapton32:17

Was actually a lifesaver for me. This is a record that I heard.

Eric Clapton32:22

And it came from a movie which I saw at a time when I thought rock and roll was dead. And then I went to see Purple Rain and I thought, well, this is it. It's someone.

Eric Clapton32:30

It's a reincarnation of Little Richard Jimi Hendrix and James Brown in one, and uh I thought that's exactly what the world needed.

Eric Clapton32:38

Very controversial figure, but I love him dearly and I think he's a genius. Musically he's a genius.

Speaker 232:45

Bing I could never steal you from a villa

Speaker 232:54

But it's a shame on a friend you had in the friendly

Speaker 232:59

Purple red

Presenter33:14

Prince and Purple Reign. Now, Eric, you've got to choose one of those eight that is more important to you, that you must have more than any of the others.

Eric Clapton33:21

Yeah.

Eric Clapton33:22

Although every one of them means a great deal to me for different reasons, that last one actually embodies so many different things. And emotionally it's just so powerful. I think I'd choose Purple Rain.

Presenter33:34

And you'd be happy to exist with this music, wouldn't you?

Eric Clapton33:37

I think I could um survive quite easily if, you know, given the fact that I'm a fisherman, I could probably catch enough to eat.

Eric Clapton33:45

and live on music. I really I think um

Eric Clapton33:48

For me, the great thing about music is that it's such a great sustenance. I mean, I can get nutrition almost from music in itself. If I had nothing else.

Presenter33:57

And you'd make even more yourself, because as we've heard, your luxury is your guitar, of course.

Presenter34:02

What about the book?

Eric Clapton34:04

Well, I've got a book um that my ex-wife gave me several years ago, The Complete Works of Dickens, which I thought I've never even sat down and tried to read and uh it's a massive tome of a thing and I thought well if I took that with me that would definitely keep me occupied for the rest of my life.

Presenter34:20

You're not strictly allowed complete works, really. I mean, you you ought really to choose for us just one book out. Have you read any of them?

Eric Clapton34:25

Just one book out.

Eric Clapton34:29

I think so. Well, let's see, what would I choose out of that? Um Barnaby Rudge.

Eric Clapton34:35

Don't I like the name?

Eric Clapton34:37

As good a reason as innate.

Presenter34:37

As good a reason as any. Smashing. Eric Clapton, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Eric Clapton34:42

For letting us

Eric Clapton34:44

Thank you.

Presenter34:44

Okay.

Speaker 134:51

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.