Eric Clapton may have lived a peaceful life with his parents in his home in Ripley, England until he was six or seven years old, when he learned it was all a sham, that his sister was really his mother, his father a Canadian airman he never met—and the ones he thought were his parents , his grandparents. In the midst of this turmoil and sadness, he found comfort listening to American blues singers on BBC radio.
When he was thirteen, his grandparents helped him buy his first guitar, a German made Hoyer acoustic. Eric learned to play blues by listening to singers like Big Bill Broonzy, Rambling Jack Elliot and Blind Boy Fuller, on records, copying their songs note for note. He discovered Robert Johnson later.
When he was fifteen, his grandparents helped him purchase a semi-solid body Kay electric—not as expensive as the Gibson it copied, but an excellent investment, for Eric played the Kay when he joined a band called “The Roosters” at 17, and his work with the Kay got him a place as lead guitarist for the “Yardbirds” a year later.
As a professional guitarist, not only did he adopt songs of the American bluesmen, he copied their lifestyles as well, which included using alcohol, cocaine, heroine, and the women who followed his band. Then he wooed and married George Harrison’s ex-wife, but when that relationship grew cool, he left her to begin another with Italian model and TV personality, Lory del Santo.
On August 21, 1976, Lory gave birth to a blond haired son, whom they called “Conor.” The three lived together in London until about the time his son got his first dutchboy haircut, when Eric left them. For some twenty-four months, he never thought about his family, but then began to wonder what was going on with Conor. So the next time Clapton came to New York City, he called Lory up and asked to come visit him.
Eric arrived at the Galleria Condos on March 19, 1991. During their visit, four-and-a -half year old Conor may shown his father his own imitation of the bluesman’s body language as he pretended to play his little guitar. Eric was impressed, and asked Conor if he could pick him up. After Conor held out his arms, Lory shot several photos of them.
“Do you suppose I could take him to the Circus?” Eric asked.
“If he wants to go, I don’t see why not,” she replied.
“You want to go, Conor?” she asked. “See an elephant?”
“Elephant, elephant,” he said, jumping up and down.
After Lory got him dressed, Eric carried him to the elevator and may have held him all the way down.
When they returned from the zoo, Connor ran to his mother, saying “I saw elephants and elephants.”
When time came for Eric to leave, he picked Conor up and said, “Would you like me to come see you tomorrow?”
Conor smiled.
“We can go see lots of elephants.”
“Lots of elephants?”
“In the Zoo.”
“You want to go?”
“See elephants?” Conor said. “Yes.”
“See you tomorrow,” Eric said to Lory as he told them ‘goodbye.’ “This meant a lot.”
Riding down the elevator, Eric realized he had to bring Conor back in his life.
“I never had a father,” he must have said to himself, “But I’m going to be one,now.”
Back in the condo, Conor talked on and on about seeing elephants. Lory helped him write this letter.
Daddy,
I love you,
Conor
Lory then mailed the letter to Eric’s London address.
The next morning, Lory was getting ready for Eric to arrive, when “the fax rang.” She went to answer it.
Conor was still in his pajamas, playing hide and seek with the nanny.
None of them knew that janitor had opened the four-by-six foot window on an outside wall. Hearing the nanny’s voice, he called to her as she entered the room “Don’t let the child come in here, the window’s…”
Before he could finish, Conor ran into the room, directly toward the open window…then straight throught it. The nanny screamed, as the child plunged forty-nine stories to land on the five story building next door.
Lory ran in, saw the open window, realized what had happened, and fell to the floor. Someone called an ambulance, but they arrived too late.
Eric was four minutes away, when he got the call about Conor. Devastated, he hurried to the condo, then left to see to “say goodbye to his son, and to apologize for not being a better father.”
It was Wednesday, March 20, 1991; on August 21st Conor Clapton would have been five years old.
They flew to England for Conor’s funeral at St. Magdalene’s Parish Church, in Ripley. Conor’s gravestone bears the words “Beloved Son. Child of infinite beauty, you will live in our heart.”
A day or two later, Eric received Conor’s letter. The old Eric would have turned to heroin to deal with the hurt , but the new one flew to Antiqua to begin struggling against addiction, and to concentrate on his son. He spent nine months in solitude, during which he wrote “Tears in Heaven.”
Not standard electric blues, with a heart-broken man singing of the woman who has left him, or the drugs he craves, but an acoustic song born of sorrow, but not despair, in which the father talks his son in heaven. Here are selected verses:
Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven?
Would you be the same, if I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong…and carry on
Cause I know I don’t belong….here in heaven
Beyond the door, there’s peace I’m sure,
And I know there’ll be no more…Tears in Heaven.
During those months in Antigua, images of Conor, of himself, and of last things came together in the song, which he sang to the audience on “MTV Unplugged” in 1992, and at every performance after that, for twelve years. Eventually, the song brought the peace it promised, and changed Eric Clapton’s life.
The song and its story have changed my own, as well.