Tag: Money and Cigarettes

A very smooth Eric Clapton song. He had a very clean guitar tone on this single. I bought this album when it was released . The single was released in 1983 and peaked at #18 on the Billboard 100, #83 in the UK, and #17 in Canada.

The song was off of Clapton’s Money and Cigarettes album. The song was written by Troy Seals, Eddie Setser, and Steve Diamond It was produced by the legendary producer Tom Dowds. Dowds produced Cream, Derek and the Dominos, and The Allman Brothers to mention a few.

The difference in this album was that Eric was actually clean and sober for the first time in many years. The 80s was not my favorite Eric Clapton era but he did have some good songs during that stretch.

This certainly is not the “screaming guitars” of Clapton long ago. I know many Clapton fans that did not like it but it fits in with the times and still sounds like an Eric Clapton song only a little smoother than usual.

Clapton has a very addictive personality. Alcohol, heroin, and fly fishing to name a few things. During the eighties when he got clean, he started to fly fish everywhere and any free time he had on tour. It also caused some trouble in his marriage because he seemed to be always fishing.

Eric Clapton: “That first summer of my recovery was one of the most beautiful I can remember, perhaps because I was healthy and clean, and I began to rent some trout-fishing days for myself, mostly on stretches of water in the neighborhood that had been specifically stocked for local fisherman… Fishing is an absorbing pastime and has a Zen quality to it. It’s an ideal pursuit for anyone who wants to think a lot and get things in perspective. It was also a perfect way of getting physically fit again, involving as it does a great deal of walking. I would go out at the crack of dawn and often stay out till nighttime… For once I was actually becoming good at something that had nothing to do with guitar playing or music. For the first time in a long time, I was doing something very normal and fairly mundane, and it was really important to me.”

Eric even made sure that when he was on tour, he was always close to fishing opportunities, often requesting that his manager, Roger Forrester, only book accommodations near fly fishing areas, often spending hours on the water before gigs.

The song regained popularity in 2010 when it was used in the T-Mobile HTC Magic myTouch 3G telephone commercial where Clapton appeared.