(Credits: Far Out / Chris Hakkens)
Sun 24 August 2025 20:00, UK
Songwriters can rarely switch off the creative tap, and ideas for new material can come at times when they least expect a track to arrive, as Eric Clapton can attest.
Artists can spend entire weeks slaving away in the studio, and come out with very little in the way of a reward for their hard work. It’s the opposite of an ordinary job, and no two days are ever the same, but on the rare occasion when songwriters successfully capture that magic in a bottle feeling, it all becomes worthwhile.
It’s impossible to predict when these golden moments will emerge, and in the case of Clapton, it came when he was least expecting it during the recording process of his sixth solo album, Backless, released in 1978.
At this time, Clapton had been trying to woo his close friend George Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, for several years. In 1977, Boyd and Harrison divorced, which led to Clapton beginning a relationship with the model, with the two tying the knot in 1979 and remaining together for a decade.
There was no bad blood between Clapton and Harrison, despite the quite surreal situation. In fact, the Beatles guitarist even performed at Clapton’s wedding to Boyd, along with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
Eric Clapton and his wife Pattie Boyd. (Credit: Alamy)
It was an incredibly complex set of circumstances for Clapton to navigate with words. So, instead, he used songwriting as a vessel and stumbled upon the creation of ‘Golden Ring’, which he believes to be one of his finest songs.
In the programme for his 1979 tour of North America, Clapton explained how ‘Golden Ring’ was born, writing, “The best thing that happened on Backless were the things that happened at the time. I got away with one song on there, ‘Golden Ring’, which I think is the strongest song on the album, because I wrote it because I was fed up with the general sort of apathy of everyone involved.”
While he didn’t expect it to lead to anything of note, Clapton was blown away by the final result, adding, “I just thought, ‘Well, I’ll take a song in there and whether they like it or not, we’ll do it, they’ll learn it and record it, and we’ll put it on the record and that’s that!’” And that kind of conviction carried the thing through.”
Clapton then explained how he believed ‘Golden Ring’ was “the only one that came through with any kind of feeling, with strength.”
He added, “Songs like that are caused by situations, but situations of that extremity don’t happen every day, thank God.”
It was a state-of-affairs that Clapton wouldn’t want to relive in a hurry, but the creation of ‘Golden Ring’ was a consolation for the anxiety-inducing ordeal that he suffered for the sake of love. Thankfully, he had music to turn to and use as a coping mechanism, with his feelings laid bare on the track.
Clapton didn’t play the creation for many decades, it re-entered his setlist in 2024 and has become a mainstay for the first time, almost 50 years after he recorded it amid an emotional haze at Olympic Studios in London.
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