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October 13, 2007

The A-list musicians' muse - Pattie Boyd

This has nothing to do with politics but I do hope you'll indulge me anyway.

I just read an AP piece on Pattie Boyd's new book in which she talks about her marriages to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton.

I'm very much looking forward to reading her book. Three of my all-time favorite songs were written Pattie Boyd- "Something" by Harrison, "Layla" and the hauntingly beautiful "Wonderful Tonight" by Clapton. All three are on my MP3 player, but of the three I play "Something" and "Wonderful Tonight" much, much more often than "Layla. As a life-long hopeless romantic those two songs touch me in a way that very few things in this life ever have.

Fittingly enough Boyd's book is entitled "Wonderful Tonight". Although from the review it seems that Clapton doesn't come off nearly as well as Harrison does.

Despite the ups and downs of the marriage, the book presents a warm portrait of Harrison, who died of cancer in 2001. "Eric and I were playmates," Boyd writes, "but George and I were soul mates."

There was also the issue of Clapton's alcoholism too.

"I have to take some of the credit for his bad behavior," she said. "I allowed it. I would not allow it now.

"I now know about alcoholism, for example — I know that it is a disease. Whereas when I was younger, I just thought it was people behaving badly. Eric was drinking far too much and I just thought it was a nightmare. I didn't realize he was ill."

As a recovering addict I can empathize all too easily with her on that point.

Eric Clapton is set to release his own autobiography next month and Pattie Boyd is looking forward to reading it.

"I'm looking forward to it," she said. "I'll plunge straight in."

Posted by Kevin at October 13, 2007 07:38 PM