I like this song just as much as Layla. It was written by Eric Clapton and Bobby Whitlock. This song and “I Looked Away” are two of my favorites on the album. Bell Bottom Blues peaked at only #91 on the Billboard 100 in 1971. Recently, Eric did a great thing for someone with this album.
Derek and The Dominos formed after working on George Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass. After that, they played a lot of different small clubs all over Europe. They made the album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs in Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida. It’s there where Clapton met Duane Allman and a little later invited him to join them. Duane ended up turning Eric down because he believed in the Allman Brothers and he built them from the ground up. Eric was one of his guitar guys so it had to be a hard choice for him.
Clapton first heard about Allman when listening to Wilson Pickett’s version of Hey Jude for the first time and heard his guitar playing at the end of the song. He called up either Ahmet Ertegun or Tom Dowd and asked who was that guitar player? Eric has said that he has never heard better rock guitar playing on an R&B record.
In 1970, Eric Clapton was experiencing emotional anguish over George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd. He recounts writing the song for Boyd after she asked him to get her a pair of bell-bottom jeans while he visited the US.
Clapton repackaged this album and the first thing he did was to ask his attorneys…what is Bobby Whitlock going to get out of this? Bobby played keyboards and wrote a lot of the songs with Eric. The attorneys told Eric he would get nothing because he sold all of his rights. He was down at one time and had to sell everything. Eric and his attorneys went to the publishing company and bought back all of Bobby’s rights and handed it over to him without Whitlock even knowing.
Bobby Whitlock: Well, unbeknownst to me, Eric and Michael took their attorneys in to the respective Warner/Chappel and Universal and all the other companies and bought back my rights to my income and restored them and gave them back to me. Out of the blue.
So all of my royalties have come back. And now it’s even more so, because it hasn’t been a month-and-a-half ago that I wrote him to explain how ‘Bell Bottom Blues’ came about, and I sent it to Eric and to Michael. Someone had come online and says something about, ‘Is this true that ‘Bell Bottom Blues’ was written about a pair of trousers?’
And I said, Yeah, well, it was that and this girl in France that Eric was seeing for a little while while we were there. I’d forgotten about Pattie [Boyd – subject of ‘Layla’] asking him about those pants. But anyway, before I would answer this and put it out publicly online, I decided, Well, I probably ought to write Eric.
Bobby Whitlock: “Eric met this girl, she was like a Persian princess or something, and she wore bell bottoms. She was all hung up on him – he gave her a slide that Duane (Allman) had given him and he wrapped it in leather and she wore it around her neck. She didn’t speak a word of English and they had to date through an interpreter. That relationship did not last but a week. He started the song over there, then when we got back to England, we finished it up in his TV room in Hurtwood Edge.”
Bell Bottom Blues Indeed!
Bell Bottom Blues
Bell bottom blues, you made me cry
I don’t want to lose this feeling
And if I could choose a place to die
It would be in your arms
Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you?
Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back?
I’d gladly do it because
I don’t want to fade away
Give me one more day, please
I don’t want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay
It’s all wrong, but it’s all right
The way that you treat me baby
Once I was strong but I lost the fight
You won’t find a better loser
Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you?
Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back?
I’d gladly do it because
I don’t want to fade away
Give me one more day, please
I don’t want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay
Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you?
Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back?
I’d gladly do it ’cause
I don’t want to fade away
Give me one more day, please
I don’t want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay
Bell bottom blues, don’t say goodbye
I’m sure we’re gonna meet again
And if we do, don’t you be surprised
If you find me with another lover
Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you?
Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back?
I’d gladly do it ’cause
I don’t want to fade away
Give me one more day, please
I don’t want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay
I don’t want to fade away
Give me one more day please
I don’t want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay
I don’t want to fade away
Give me one more day please
I don’t want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay
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Always really liked this song and it was great to hear it again. I was pretty sure it was all about a girl, so now I know who! Class move to help out Whitlock.
Everything on this album was about Pattie I believe.
A bit obsessive perhaps?
Oh yes he was…of course when he got her….he didn’t know what to do with her lol.
I think it’s hard to beat “Layla” – that iconic guitar riff always gets me! That said, I completely agree there’s more to the album than it’s most famous track. “Bell Bottom Blues” is a song I liked from the first time I heard it. I also agree “I Looked Away” is a great opener. I also dig “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” and “Key to the Highway”, which shuffles along nicely!
Well…as far as expressing the sorrow Clapton was feeling…this one does it…it sounds like he almost cries the verses out. That is why I like it so much.
Good song. It’s been a while since I have heard it. I am a Clapton fan.
Yea I like this one…his pain is clear in this one…more than Layla
Boyd was pure poison.
I would love to meet her…I think Clapton was imagining someone she or no one is…perfect. Plus the drugs had some to do with it also.
I don’t think she went out of her way to be mean or ugly. She was a drug, in her own way.
Oh yea…she was that I admit. Robbie Robertson said in his book that she was the prettiest person he ever met in person.
Beauty does open doors, so to speak…
Great heartbreak song. The lyrics describe a lover’s quarrel, and this song is a portrait of a man who is on the brink of collapse, because he is so much in love with a girl that he can’t have. He is willing to crawl and beg for her love even though he feel like he is going to lose her. He tells her not to be surprised if she finds him with another lover, because he doesn’t feel that they will ever be together.
That is why I thought this one expresses more of a desire he had for Boyd than Layla…
I love those stories of redemption when people get their rights back. (And I hear Bobby Whitlock learned to play by looking over the shoulder of Booker T. Jones.) This is one of my favorite songs on the album – great vocals, guitar with some subtlety – a lot of rock guitarists seem to think the more notes, the better (including these two sometimes). I’d rather hear the right notes and the right silences than a lot of notes hoping the good ones are in there somewhere.
Yes…I don’t like guitarists who do fast scales…the playing has no soul when they do that…you can feel it in the great ones.
I would add Allman into my list as well. You’ve officially converted me, Max.
Thanks Lisa! Nothing worng with playing fast but personally I like them to be play for the song…with feeling…Robbie Robertson is a good example. Every note that man played was for the song. Ringo is like that on drums…he played for the song.
You’re welcome, and well-said on playing for the song.
Agreed on the hot-dogging. During solos maybe but when they drown out everything throughout the song becomes unlistenable. Clapton, Robbie Robertson, David Gilmour, Doyle Bramhall II all know how to do it right.
I don’t like it quite as much as ‘Layla’ but it isn’t far behind to me & ranks among Eric’s best works. Great to hear about him getting Whitlock his royalties back, definitely a classy move .
Well….like I told Christian…I think it shows more of the pain he was feeling than Layla…he sounds like he is crying the verses out.
That was awesome that he did that for Whitlock.
If there was a good thing about Cream breaking up it was all the cool music the boys recorded. A good cut from an album of many. Good pics Max.
It makes me want to write a song about Boyd… yea this one is a great one to listen to when things are not going well at times. This one is not a product…it’s pure emotion.
The music is solid. Blues, country , rock. What a good mix.
So noone knows which women it’s about? I like this record, almost seems like the end of Clapton’s peak. Kind of lost his edge after that.
Yea he went to a more of a country rock feel after this until the mid eighties.
Good song, but one for the Music Appreciation Club rather than the masses of Top Twenty pop fans, if that makes sense?
Yes it does…I seem to naturally lean toward those songs.
A desert island disk as they say mate! Did you see the live version with bobby on the grand piano? Fairly recent i think. Sensational! Didn’t know about Clapton helping out Bobby with the rights, nor the jeans — thanks for the write up!
I just listened to that version…oh yea it’s awesome. Whitlock sings it great! Thanks man!
Finally, a story about Eric that doesn’t treat him like a dirtball or a delinquent, both titles he’s well-earned over time. You know he’s just the kind of guy I fall for. Or did, at least. After reading O’Dell’s book, I’m happy to know what he did for Whitlock. This song is one of my favorite of his but there are so many favorites with him.
I think he is better being around guys…Pattie’s opinon on him is around the same as Chris… I think it’s more of a problem with women he has…I could be wrong but that is a pattern with him.
Well he was essentially abandoned by his mother as a young child so it stands to reason he would have trust issues with women.
Yes that is true. It’s been a while since I read his bio…
There is a good doc out there on him, not sure if on netflix or some other place but it explains a lot. I think he thought his mom was his sister, iirc, or she left for another place and came back when he was half grown and tried to play mom.
I remember that now…they told him she was his sister but it was really his mom I believe…this is the book I’m talking about…it’s about George and Eric. https://www.amazon.com/All-Things-Must-Pass-Away/dp/1641603259/ref=asc_df_1641603259/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=459680080537&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18284780848097759917&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9013076&hvtargid=pla-942903743691&psc=1&mcid=e5bb3047f9d63fe1808edb0085e9d6fc&gclid=CjwKCAiAiP2tBhBXEiwACslfnvv-vVgDvufwu2DZslJ1NHgCMCMzqQgwPeKHdTgmFhpCGoSCFyxGDRoC1qQQAvD_BwE
Aha.
George had a much more grounded upbringing. I felt sorry for Eric reading that book
IIRC he also got teased mercilessly by the adults in his family which will twist anyone’s mind. His picking up the guitar was his salvation — and his curse.
That is why he kept quiting bands also… Yardbirds, John Mayall Bluesbreakers, Cream, Derek and the Dominos…he would play for a couple of years and then go.
Wow, Clapton comes through and does the right thing.
Love this track as well as the iconic Layla (the outro of which always makes me think of that scene in Goodfellas)
Man I love this LP. A few years ago I got to see Bobby Whitlock do a solo show. It was awesome. He did quite a few of the songs and told some great stories!
I just saw a clip of Whitlock doing this song….it was incredible.
I appreciate this post , i’ve always loved derek and the dominos , but never had much of their backing story in my head , thanks to this i now know a little more about them.
I appreciate you reading! Sorry for the delay in responding but the Spam filder got this one for some reason.
No problem at all 🙂 would you mind giving my latest review a read ? 😀
I sure will! I’ll get over today.
Thank you so much 😁