Clapton: The Autobiography Quotes
"Though this was true across the class divide, it was particularly so among working-class families such as ours, who, living in a small village community, knew little of the luxury of privacy."
"Because of this, I became intensely confused about my position, and alongside my deep feelings of love for my family there existed a suspicion that in a tiny place like Ripley, I might be an embarrassment to them that they always had to explain."
"The truth I eventually discovered was that Mum and Dad, Rose and Jack Clapp, were in fact my grandparents."
"Her suffering made her a very warm person with a deep compassion for other people’s dilemmas."
"An extremely conscientious man with a very strong work ethic."
"School for me began when I was five, at Ripley Church of England Primary School, which was situated in a flint building next to the village church."
"Music became a healer for me, and I learned to listen with all my being."
"In spite of the fact that Ripley was, all in all, a happy place to grow up in, life was soured by what I had found out about my origins."
"The art annex at Hollyfield Road School was a short distance away up Surbiton Hill Road, and on the days when we were doing art we would walk up to this building where our teacher put us to work doing still lifes, sculpture, or drawing."
"It’s very difficult to explain the effect the first blues record I heard had on me, except to say that I recognized it immediately."
"What I came up with were black suits, with jackets that had, instead of a standard lapel, something more like a shirt lapel, which buttoned almost up to the top."
"It was quite local, and all our followers from the CrawDaddy would come and see us, so we had our own fans to play to, and they actually listened to our music."
"I remember him playing us the tune of 'Yesterday,' which was half written, and asking everyone what they thought."
"He was calling it 'Scrambled Eggs,' and singing 'Scrambled eggs…Everybody calls me scrambled eggs.'"
"Throughout my life I chose a lot of my guitars because of the other people who played them."
"I just couldn’t believe how shiny and beautiful it was. At last, I felt like a real musician."
"I began to develop a real contempt for pop music in general, and to feel genuinely uncomfortable about being in the Yardbirds."
"Actually I had no problem with having a hit, as long as it was a song we could be proud of."
"Totally disillusioned, I was at that point ready to quit the music business altogether."
"I wasn’t really sure quite what my principles were."
"Sex was still a matter of conquest rather than the result of a loving relationship."
"I think he was already quite isolated in his musical tastes, and now he’d found someone just as serious about the blues as he was."
"We could play, if necessary, without amplification and still hear them."
"I had seen the film, with Donald Pleasance as the tramp Davies, as many times as I could, and I had also bought the script, a lot of which I knew by heart."
"Traveling to these, what seemed to us then, faraway places was important, as there was only so much work in the Home Counties."
"The moment I said yes to John, I joined a working schedule the likes of which I had never experienced."
"It took me a while to tumble to the fact that he was partial to good-looking guys, but I had no problem with that."
"I insisted on having the mike exactly where I wanted it to be during the recording."
"It was not a path of ambition; I had no desire for fame or recognition."
"I just needed to be able to make the best music I could, with the tools that I had."
"I played guitar with John Lennon on 'Yer Blues,' in a band put together for the night that also featured Keith Richards on bass, Mitch Mitchell on drums, and Gitlis on violin."
"Detective-Sergeant Norman Pilcher, a notorious London copper, had made a name for himself on the drug squad by busting a number of famous rock stars."
"The panic to get out of Chelsea was a catalyst to go out and buy some property magazines."
"As soon as I walked in, I had the most incredible feeling of coming home."
"The house, called Hurtwood Edge, was rumored to have been designed by the great Victorian architect Sir Edwin Lutyens."
"I moved in very quickly, with my guitars, a couple of armchairs in the living room, and a bed upstairs."
"I decided very quickly that this was the place where I would live for the rest of my life."
"I had never owned my own home. All my life I’d been bumming around."
"The road that led to it, which went from Shere to Ewhurst and at one point, in a place called 'The Cut,' became single-lane and looked like a riverbed dug down between sheer, high rock walls."
"The last Blind Faith concert took place in Honolulu on August 24, and I then returned to England and Hurtwood."
"I completely ducked the responsibility of being a group member and settled for the role of just being the guitar player."
"As I became more and more disenchanted with what we were doing, I was falling increasingly under the spell of our support group, Delaney & Bonnie."
"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."
"By the time we got to the hotel in New York, the drugs were starting to wear off."
"I began to get into the habit of dropping into Friar Park, in the hope that George might be away and I might catch a few moments alone with Pattie."
"I was so unfit after three years of doing little more than lying in a nod on a couch in front of the TV, the agreement was that, to begin with, I would work according to my condition."
"We were just enjoying playing, getting stoned, and writing songs."
"I was feeling good, because life was starting to look good again."
"It was a surreal experience, as I spent the whole time getting drunk with Keith Moon."
"I knew I could still play from the heart, and no matter how primitive or sloppy it sounded, it would be real, and that was my strength."
"Music had always been my salvation, a way to capture the fleeting moments of grace that proved there was a God."
"The more I heard great musicians and singers, the more I wanted to step back."
"I wasn’t too concerned about what people thought; I was drunk most of the time and having fun."
"The struggle of doing internal work unaided was unthinkable."
"It was a huge relief to know that I was suffering from a recognized medical condition no more shameful than diabetes."
"In the lowest moments of my life, the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink anymore if I was dead."
"I had never learned to look honestly at myself. In fact, in order to protect my drinking, it was important not to do that."
"Denial seemed to head the list, followed by self-centeredness, pride, and dishonesty."
"I remember laughing and laughing for the first time in years."
"No one holds a gun to the head of a person involved with an alcoholic."
"Their foundations are often shaken when the addict takes steps toward recovery."
"I figured out exactly what it was I thought they needed from me, and I gave it to them."
"I had to face the problems of integrating myself with the people at home."
"I’m not like these people. I don’t really belong here."
"It had been so long since I had done anything without booze, I just didn’t know where to start."
"After all, hadn’t I got sober for her? Where was her gratitude?"
"Fishing is an absorbing pastime and has a Zen quality to it."
"All I really wanted to do was play music I loved with people I loved and cared for."
"Whether the pressures were contractual or habitual is irrelevant, as I was back on the treadmill."
"I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether."
"I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray."
"Staying sober really was the most important thing in my life now and had given me direction when I thought I had none."
"I had also been shown how fragile life really is, and strangely enough had somehow been cheered by this, as if my powerlessness had become a source of relief for me."
"I believe people wanted to show their support for me, and those who couldn’t find any other way bought the album."
"For myself, stopping smoking was like giving up alcohol. I have never missed it, and not even in the darkest moments of my life have I ever felt like lighting up a cigarette, or taking a drink."
"The end of the affair, when it finally came, coincided with an electrical fire in my London house, which seemed like an omen."
"In order to keep what I had, I had to give it away. In order to stay sober, I had to help others get sober."
"I knew that it would pay off, and my reasoning was that if only one person came out of there sober, and managed to stay sober, then the whole thing would have been worth it."
"The saddest part for me was knowing that she had held on to all this poisonous stuff for over twenty years in order to fuel her need for oblivion."
"I really believe it’s important for people, at that stage of their departure, to know exactly what is going on."
"I was happy for the first time in as long as I could remember, and I didn’t really have a plan, workwise or domestically. I just wanted to live in the moment for a while without any resolution."
"I had achieved as much as I could on my own, and now I had a chance to find out what a real partnership was like."
"At the age of fifty-four, I had probably made the first healthy choice in a partner in my entire life."
"The bliss we felt on her arrival was slightly marred by some minor difficulties that we weren’t really prepared for."
"It was a dangerous ambition, but in the aftermath of Francesca, it was one that I felt I could accomplish."
"I was convinced there was no other way to make this record. It had to bleed out of me until there was nothing left to be said or done, however long it took."
"I poured my soul into this one, and I believe you can hear that."
"All things must pass, and I had to let him go, but it was difficult."
"I am starting out on the ground floor, and that makes me try even harder and is good for my humility."
"I was praying for the tour to finish, and counting the minutes."
"Staying sober and helping others to achieve sobriety will always be the single most important proposition of my life."
"Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present."
"Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached."