Layla

Lore & Background

In 1966, Beatles guitarist George Harrison married Pattie Boyd, a model he met two years before during the filming of A Hard Day's Night. During the late 1960s, Clapton and Harrison became close friends. Clapton contributed uncredited (although openly acknowledged) guitar work on Harrison's song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the Beatles' self-titled double album (also known as the White Album), and Harrison co-wrote and played guitar on Cream's "Badge" from Goodbye. Between his tenures in Cream and Blind Faith, Clapton fell in love with Boyd. The title of "Layla" was inspired by the story of Layla and Majnun, which Clapton had been told by his friend Ian Dallas, who was converting to Islam. Nizami's tale, about a moon princess who was married off by her father to a man she did not love, resulting in Majnun's madness, struck a deep chord with Clapton. 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 his former band mates Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. During their relationship, Clapton wrote another love ballad for Boyd, "Wonderful Tonight" (1977). Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989.

Reader's Guide

"Layla" is defined by two movements, each marked by a riff. The first movement, which was recorded in the key of D minor for choruses and C-sharp minor for verses, is centred on the "signature riff," a guitar piece using hammer-ons, pull-offs and power chords. The first section contains the overdub-heavy slide guitar solo, played by Allman. By placing his slide at points beyond the end of the fretboard, Allman was able to play notes at a higher pitch than could be played with standard technique. Dowd referred to this as "notes that aren't on the instrument." The second movement is commonly referred to as the "Piano Exit." Originally played in C major, the tape speed of the coda was increased slightly during mixing. The resulting pitch is somewhere between C and C sharp. The piano interlude at the end of the song is augmented by an acoustic guitar, and is also the accompaniment to the outro-solo. The same melody is also played on Allman's slide guitar an octave higher. Gordon does not improvise or deviate from the piano part; Clapton and Allman are the ones who improvise the melody. The song ends with Allman playing his signature high-pitched "bird call" on his slide guitar. Clapton commented on the song: "'Layla' is a difficult one, because it's a difficult song to perform live. You have to have a good complement of musicians to get all of the ingredients going... It's difficult to do as a quartet, for instance, because there are some parts you have to play and sing completely opposing lines, which is almost impossible to do." Pattie Boyd later reflected: "I think that he was amazingly raw at the time... He's such an incredible musician that he's able to put his emotions into music in such a way that the audience can feel it instinctively. It goes right through you."

Did You Know?

• Duane Allman composed the song's signature riff, transforming it from a ballad into a "rocker," according to Clapton.
• The recording of the first section consisted of sixteen tracks, of which six were guitar tracks, including harmonies and solos by Clapton and Allman.
• The acoustic version of "Layla" won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song.