As George Harrison’s marriage to Pattie Boyd grew chillier, Eric Clapton’s feelings for her heated up. Harrison and Clapton were friends, but this did little to stop Clapton from pursuing his wife. While she was still with Harrison, Clapton wrote an album about her, and then invited her over to listen to it. He later admitted that this was not one of his best ideas.
Eric Clapton said his method of pursuing Pattie Boyd didn’t go over well
After Clapton and Harrison became friends, the former began to develop feelings for Boyd. The way he felt for her flamed into what he described as obsession, and he wrote the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs about her. He hoped that when she heard it, she would admit to feeling the same way about him.
“I had convinced myself that when she heard the completed Layla album, with all its references to our situation, she would be so overcome by my cry of love that she would finally leave George and come away with me for good,” he wrote in Clapton: The Autobiography. “So I called her up one afternoon and asked her if she’d like to have tea and listen to the new record. Of course, it was blatant emotional blackmail and doomed to failure.”
Boyd agreed to listen to the album. Her reaction wasn’t quite what Clapton had hoped for, though.
“I think she was deeply touched by the fact that I had written all these songs about her, but at the same time the intensity of it probably scared the living daylights out of her,” he wrote. “Needless to say, it didn’t work, and I was back at square one.”
Pattie Boyd shared why she felt flattered by Eric Clapton’s attention
Boyd said that the moment she listened to the song “Layla,” she knew it was about her.
“He switched on the tape machine, turned up the volume and played me the most powerful, moving song I had ever heard,” she said, per The Daily Mail. “It was ‘Layla,’ about a man who falls hopelessly in love with a woman who loves him but is unavailable. He played it to me two or three times, all the while watching my face intently for my reaction. My first thought was: ‘Oh God, everyone’s going to know this is about me.’”
She admitted that the song put her in an “uncomfortable” position; she was still married to Harrison, one of Clapton’s close friends. Still, it moved her. Her marriage to Harrison was steadily deteriorating and he treated her with cold detachment.
“It was hard not to be flattered when I caught him staring at me or when he chose to sit beside me,” she said. “He complimented me on what I was wearing and the food I had cooked, and he said things he knew would make me laugh. Those were all things that George no longer did.”
He eventually told George Harrison he was in love with his wife
The situation between Harrison, Boyd, and Clapton came to a head at a party hosted by Robert Stigwood. According to Boyd, she attended the party on the same day Clapton showed her the album.
“During the early hours, George appeared. He was morose and his mood was not improved by walking into a party that had been going on for several hours and where most of the guests were high on drugs,” she said, noting, “He kept asking ‘Where’s Pattie?’ but no one seemed to know. He was about to leave when he spotted me in the garden with Eric. It was just getting light, and very misty. George came over and demanded: ‘What’s going on?’”
Clapton took the opportunity to reveal his feelings to Harrison.
“To my horror, Eric said: ‘I have to tell you, man, that I’m in love with your wife,’” Boyd recalled. “I wanted to die. George was furious.”
After Boyd and Harrison divorced in 1977, she married Clapton. Their marriage ended in 1989.
