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| Gateway drugs take many forms. |
The Hit
Have you seen Goodfellas? If so, you’ve heard Derek & the Dominos, “Layla,” if only the outro. You know the part when Robert DeNiro’s character cleaned up after the Lufthansa heist because all those people started spending too loudly? The part where those two kids walk up to the pink Caddy? Or when they open the meat locker and that one guy, gangster who was kind of a goofball, is hanging in the refrigerated truck with sides of beef? Ring any bells?
Forget about it. Even it lasts over four minutes, the outro feels like a moment of Zen transcendence, of floating away after the twisting turmoil of the first half (or less) of the song, the tangled, tortured guitar, a man bellowing “Stella!” in a New Orleans monsoon, only in the form of a song.
The funny thing was, not many people heard that anguished shout in the dark when “Derek” first sang it. When Derek & the Dominos released Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs in 1970, a couple critics perked up but not enough to goose sales. It was “a critical and commercial flop” and, as one of the major players in producing the album later said, even “Layla” “died a death” upon release.
The funny thing is, it might not have if one of the aforementioned “major player” had any desire to announce himself.
The Rest of the Story
“We were a make-believe band. We were all hiding inside it. Derek and the Dominos – the whole thing. So it couldn't last. I had to come out and admit that I was being me. I mean, being Derek was a cover for the fact that I was trying to steal someone else's wife. That was one of the reasons for doing it, so that I could write the song, and even use another name for Pattie. So Derek and Layla – it wasn't real at all.”
“We were all hiding inside it” sounds a little rich once you put together the fact that it was mostly Eric “Derek” Clapton doing the hiding. Derek & the Dominos deliberately hid Clapton’s involvement with the band because he’d had enough of the “Clapton is God” mythology that he felt destroyed both Cream and Blind Faith, his short-lived project with Steve Winwood. That said, telling the whole story involves a little backing up. (Also, this oral history fits together the parts in the most clarifying way I’ve come across so far; whatever errors I make here are corrected there.)
Have you seen Goodfellas? If so, you’ve heard Derek & the Dominos, “Layla,” if only the outro. You know the part when Robert DeNiro’s character cleaned up after the Lufthansa heist because all those people started spending too loudly? The part where those two kids walk up to the pink Caddy? Or when they open the meat locker and that one guy, gangster who was kind of a goofball, is hanging in the refrigerated truck with sides of beef? Ring any bells?
Forget about it. Even it lasts over four minutes, the outro feels like a moment of Zen transcendence, of floating away after the twisting turmoil of the first half (or less) of the song, the tangled, tortured guitar, a man bellowing “Stella!” in a New Orleans monsoon, only in the form of a song.
The funny thing was, not many people heard that anguished shout in the dark when “Derek” first sang it. When Derek & the Dominos released Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs in 1970, a couple critics perked up but not enough to goose sales. It was “a critical and commercial flop” and, as one of the major players in producing the album later said, even “Layla” “died a death” upon release.
The funny thing is, it might not have if one of the aforementioned “major player” had any desire to announce himself.
The Rest of the Story
“We were a make-believe band. We were all hiding inside it. Derek and the Dominos – the whole thing. So it couldn't last. I had to come out and admit that I was being me. I mean, being Derek was a cover for the fact that I was trying to steal someone else's wife. That was one of the reasons for doing it, so that I could write the song, and even use another name for Pattie. So Derek and Layla – it wasn't real at all.”
“We were all hiding inside it” sounds a little rich once you put together the fact that it was mostly Eric “Derek” Clapton doing the hiding. Derek & the Dominos deliberately hid Clapton’s involvement with the band because he’d had enough of the “Clapton is God” mythology that he felt destroyed both Cream and Blind Faith, his short-lived project with Steve Winwood. That said, telling the whole story involves a little backing up. (Also, this oral history fits together the parts in the most clarifying way I’ve come across so far; whatever errors I make here are corrected there.)
