From the very first driving notes of the intro to the song “Layla,” written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, you know this tune’s gonna rock. Originally released by their group, Derek and the Dominos, in November 1970, the song initially wasn’t very popular. Two versions later it achieved chart success, the first in 1972 and the second 20 years later as an acoustic MTV Unplugged solo performance by Clapton.
As the story goes, the song was initially inspired by a love story that originated in “
The Story of Layla and Majnun” by 12th-century Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi. The book moved Clapton profoundly, it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl, then went crazy after discovering that he could not marry her. Clapton felt the angst behind the story, which eerily paralleled his personal situation at that time with his unrequited love of Pattie Boyd, who was his...
