The Greatest Unrequited Love Song Ever Written. And the Album That Surrounded It.
Eric Clapton was in love with Pattie Boyd. Pattie Boyd was married to George Harrison. Clapton wrote her a song anyway — a desperate, aching, two-part epic that opens with one of the most recognizable guitar riffs in rock history and pivots, four minutes in, into a piano coda so gentle it sounds like surrender.
She didn't leave Harrison for him. Not yet. But the song existed, and it was undeniable.
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs was released in 1970 under the name Derek and the Dominos — partly because Clapton didn't want to put his name on something so nakedly personal. The band recorded it in Miami with Duane Allman sitting in on slide guitar, and what should have been a guest appearance became one of the great guitar partnerships in rock history. Allman elevated every song he touched. He was killed in a motorcycle accident less than a year after the sessions ended. He was 24.
The album also contains "Bell Bottom Blues," "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," and "Keep on Growing" — songs that would be the centerpiece of any other artist's career. Here they're the supporting cast.
Pattie Boyd eventually did leave Harrison. She married Clapton in 1979. They divorced in 1989. The song outlasted all of it.
More from the era: Explore our Classic Rock collection for more music history worth wearing.
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