Julie and I actually saw him in concert in Madison Square Garden back in 1986. In other words, shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs and before the invention of the iPod.
The list comes primarily from his post-Yardbirds, post-Cream years.
5. Tangled In Love. A gentle track from a gentle album, 1986’s Behind The Sun. If you know anything about Clapton’s love life, he knows what he’s singing about here.
4. Promises. Can you believe a girl used this to break up with me when I was 17? “I don’t love you and you don’t love me . . . we made a promise we’d always be friends.” Friends?! No thanks. The next song in that relational melodrama? “My Best Friend’s Girl (And She Used To Be Mine)” by The Cars.
3. Bell Bottom Blues. I don’t like the blues. Except these.
2. The Core. By virtue of its length, its horns, and its insistent riff, this one always reminds me of the Stone’s Can’t You Hear Me Knockin.’ Both tunes are terrific and terrifically under-rated.
1. Layla. Could #1 have been anything else?