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Eric clapton wonderful tonight song11/6/2022 ![]() ![]() But this song makes that seem a totally foregone conclusion: this supposed paean to domesticity doesn’t actually use words or concepts connected to love to show he values the relationship, merely words and concepts related to beauty, and that’s partly the beauty as reflected in the eyes of other men. Obviously, we know that the marriage didn’t work out IRL. But what seems to be missing from this song is anything resembling a soul: the apparent acceptance of an empty, indulgent life, with no judgment or any apparent qualms about it, or any particular interest in what the woman depicted in the song has to think or say about it. Not that I’m saying that Clapton should have used his country song to talk about being out of work on the steel mill or something like that. Despite being a story song there’s no real story here, it’s more a sketch of aimless privilege than anything else. ![]() That the writer himself doesn’t realize how empty and vapid the world depicted in this song is provides a fascinating look into how he thinks and what he values, but it makes the song utterly intolerable. Given his worldwide fame at an exceedingly young age, it’s plausible he never had the chance to. Nor is he particularly self-aware, as if he were, Wonderful Tonight would never have seen the light of day. What to make of the aching sincerity of Layla (and Clapton is nothing if not sincere, if not always candid or honest) and his conducting of affairs within such a short time period of his marriage? It suggests that he doesn’t really know himself, fundamentally. I see him as the ultimate bullshitter, the guy who builds himself up as the ultimate romantic but, when he finally achieves the impossible and wins the girl, he loses her within just a few years. Which is to say, frankly, that the song fails because of Eric Clapton. Regardless, one gets the sense that the greatest difference between Haggard and Clapton as people was that the former looked at himself and saw his own failings and shortcomings quite clearly, while the latter looked at himself and saw nothing worth noting. Perhaps that accounts for the repetition about her looks. Admittedly, the song focuses only one one babe rather than the numerous ones in a fantasy by, say, KISS. In spite of the sound it’s more like the rock of its era than the country of its era (though it is like the country of our era) in that it presents a fantasy of wealth, beautiful women, comfort and indulgence with no real price to be paid. On the other hand, Clapton’s song is all about the day of, minus any real sort of drama. A Haggard song like Swinging Doors is all about the day after, when a guy has fucked up his life and takes stock, typically with caustic, sometimes hilarious irony. A Haggard character knows damn well that he can’t live up to the high Christian morality he was instilled with, which leads to transgression, which leads to self-hatred. But Haggard’s songs like this always wind up being exercises in self-laceration, epics of a vicious cycle of moralism and transgression. (There’s also a line about how she draws attention at a party to reinforce this.) You can easily imagine what a true country artist would do with this material–with a couple of tweaks, this could be a Merle Haggard song. Her only reward is to be told that she looks “wonderful tonight” at various intervals, her beauty being the only thing of any interest to the speaker/Clapton. Her role seems more maternal than romantic–needless to say that the song’s speaker is in no position to respond romantically to her at the end of a song. The song depicts a life of aimless comfort, meaningless parties and severe alcoholism, which the song’s speaker gets through with the help of an unnamed woman–as the material is both specific and not terribly interesting, it’s not surprising it’s autobiographical, and the woman is his then-wife Pattie Boyd. But it’s the lyrics that really drag it down, and expose the whole exercise for the fraud that it is. On the surface it’s a perfectly serviceable entry. ![]() It deals with thematically appropriate things like women and booze. The song follows the story-song style that defines the genre. From the opening riff it’s clear that Clapton has set his sights on country music for this tune, and the riff itself is fine, if a bit sleepy even for a ballad. ![]()
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