Turning pain into Art

Shoutout to Eric Clapton, Duck/Reprise and Wikipedia

In this article you’ll find:

• Introduction
• Song’s backstory
• Structure
• The meaning behind each line
• Legacy

Ranking second in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and having sold more than 280 million records worldwide, It is safe to say that Eric Clapton is one of the most influential artists of the last 50 years.

The now 78 year old artist is a British guitarist, singer and songwriter, whose most popular songs enter the categories of Rock and Blues, with the core of his playing being deeply influenced by the latter.

Having a catalog of classics that can be traced to different decades, Mr. Clapton’s mastery as a musician can’t be understated, especially in one of the pillars of his success: Songwriting.

The former member of The Yardbirds, Cream, Derek & The Dominoes and author of Cocaine, Layla and Wonderful Tonight, has given us countless gems in his music career. But today we’ll take a look at one of his saddest, more melancholic pieces of work, Tears in Heaven.

With an introduction to the background of this song, how It was written and why It resonates so much with the audience, we will decipher what makes It so hauntingly vulnerable.

Let’s dive right into it:

SONG’S BACKSTORY

Shoutout to Biography.com

On the day of MarchMarchh 1991, Eric’s son with model Lory del Santo tragically died after accidentally slipping from the 53rd floor window of a New York City apartment building, leaving the artist with the hard task of making the identification at Lennox Hill Hospital’s mortuary.

After this, he was left utterly devastated, so much so that he stopped playing music for a period, until he eventually began strumming some chords on a Spanish Guitar as a form of therapy for his distress.

Finally, he began composing again when he was asked to write music for the film Rush, however, the remorse of losing his son was still there.

When he played a little melody that he had been working on along with a rough draft of a first verse to Lili Fini Zanuck, director of the movie, It became clear that the musical idea was about Clapton’s loss, leaving the filmmaker with doubts about how It would work in an action film.

To complete the song, Slowhand asked songwriter Will Jennings, composer of memorable movie scores like “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion on Titanic’s Soundtrack, to add the rest of the verses and a bridge.

However, the American wordsmith felt uncomfortable with the idea of writing a song so deeply personal, telling Eric many times that he “should finish it himself”. Additionally, he thought the song would be too sad to be a big hit. In the end, Jennings accepted and the rest was history.

Released as a single on January, 8th 1992, Tears in Heaven would debut at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, ending up being Eric Clapton’s highest charting song in the US. It also received 9 Grammy nominations in 1993, of which he won 3 statues, including “Song of the Year”.

Considered the 362nd best song of all time by Billboard, the legacy that this beautiful piece of acoustic music has left in all our hearts is a testament to the strength of music and Its healing powers.

STRUCTURE

Shoutout to Dune Irons and Pinterest

One of the most particular aspects of this song when It comes to structuring, has to do with the fact that It doesn’t use the conventional formula for movie hits, the Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus, skipping the chorus completely and only adding a little bridge and an instrumental passage before the third verse.

However, It also incorporates an element proper to the Verse-Verse-Bridge-Verse Structure, which is the use of a rephrrefrainine pronounced at the end of each verse that talks about the overall topic of the song.

In this case, the phrase used was:

Here in Heaven

Apart from this, another one of the details of this song has to do with the fact that the 2nd and 4th verses are the same, where he talks about the need to carry on with the loss and be strong, reminding himself that he probably doesn’t belong to heaven.

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
Because I know I don't belong
Here in heaven

In the first, second and fourth verse we can see that the British author uses the same Rhyme Scheme, AABB, where he rhymes the first and second lines, while also rhyming the 3rd and 4th, then emphasizing the refrain at the end.

However, in the little bridge after the second chorus, before an instrumental passage, we can see that the first, second and third line all finish with the es/se rhyme family. At the same time, the third verse is brief in comparison to the rest, having only 3 lines with an AAA scheme.

THE MEANING BEHIND EACH LINE

Shoutout to USA today

Upon examining the first two lines of the first and fourth verse, we can see that the pain and remorse of Clapton’s songwriting are directed towards his insecurities, where he feels unsure about If his son would know his name If he saw him in heaven.

Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?
Would you be the same if I saw you in heaven?

This is due to the fact that, as stated by Eric himself, at the beginning he "didn’t see his son very often because he “didn’t understand what being a dad meant”. However, he decided to change and be more involved in his little boy’s life since he loved him. This didn’t last much as shortly after, the fatal incident happened.

By asking “Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?” he recognizes that the time they spent was short, leaving him wondering If Conor would recognize him again once in heaven.

Regarding the second line, at the time Clapton blamed himself for his son’s death, questioning if he would love him the same if he saw him in heaven, as represented in “Would you be the same if I saw you in heaven?”

Now, If we take a look at the second verse, we can see the following lines:

Would you hold my hand if I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand if I saw you in heaven?

In these two lines, the artist wonders If his son would forgive him for not being there to save him when the sad day occurred, being there to help him in dark times once reunited in heaven.

Moving on to the bridge, we observe:

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees
Time can break your heart, have you begging please
Begging please

After the loss of a loved one, the passing of time and the realization that they won’t ever be by your side again brings many to mourn in extreme ways, even being able to leave people on their knees, begging for forgiveness and the opportunity to see that person one last time. Aspect that he communicates effectively.

And finally, in the third verse:

Beyond the door, there's peace, I'm sure
And I know there'll be no more
Tears in heaven

Here, the Ripley native assures himself that once he crosses the doors of heaven, all his worries, he won’t have to worry anymore, as sadness will be replaced by an eternal sense of peace, ending his suffering.

LEGACY

Shoutout to Ri_Ya and Pixabay.com

Clapton stopped performing Tears in Heaven in 2004 since, as he states “I didn't feel the loss anymore, which is so much a part of performing those songs. I really have to connect with the feelings that were there when I wrote them. They're kind of gone and I really don't want them to come back, particularly. My life is different now. They probably just need a rest and maybe I'll introduce them for a much more detached point of view.”

It wasn’t until 2022 that he performed the song in front of a live crowd again, but at that time, the impact It had on the world was more than palpable, influencing thousands of artists to turn their pain into art and help many others in similar situations of despair.

Music is a beautiful form of art that can express all types of emotions in counted sets of verses and choruses, providing us both an escape to daily life and the help that we really need to overcome any problem we encounter.

But what we don’t realize is that It can help the author of our favorite songs as much as It does It with us, giving them the necessary output to express their demons and in this way, bury them.

I hope that this article could have been of help to you, giving you more reasons to recognize music as something more powerful than just sounds emitted in your speakers/headphones, opening your eyes to Its versatility when It comes to conveying moods. Thank you for your support and good luck!

Pages used for research:
https://www.biography.com/musicians/eric-clapton-tears-in-heaven-son
https://genius.com/Eric-clapton-tears-in-heaven-lyrics
https://musicoholics.com/song-meanings/the-untold-story-of-eric-claptons-tears-in-heaven/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_in_Heaven