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Crossroads Guitar Festival
(12 April 2013, Madison Square Garden, New York City)
Video
"Tears In Heaven" is a song written by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings, from the 1991 "Rush" film soundtrack. The song was written about the pain and loss Clapton felt following the death of his four-year-old son, Conor. Conor fell from a window of a 53rd-floor New York apartment building owned by his mother's friend on March 20, 1991. Clapton arrived at the apartment shortly after the accident. "Tears In Heaven" is one of Clapton's most successful songs, as it reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the U.S. The song also stayed three weeks as No. 1 on the American adult contemporary chart in 1992.
Jennings, who worked with Clapton on the song, was reluctant at first to help him write a personal song. The song was initially featured on the soundtrack to the film "Rush", followed by the album "Unplugged", and it won three Grammy Awards — Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 1993 Grammy Awards. It also won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video in 1992.
Clapton stopped playing it in 2004, as well as the song "My Father's Eyes", stating: "I didn't feel the loss anymore, which is so much a part of performing those songs. I really have to connect with the feelings that were there when I wrote them. They're kind of gone and I really don't want them to come back, particularly. My life is different now. They probably just need a rest and maybe I'll introduce them for a much more detached point of view." Clapton eventually resurrected both songs for his Old Sock tour in 2013.
Shortly after his single was released, he went on to the MTV Unplugged series and recorded a new version of the song.
The years following 1990 were extremely turbulent for Clapton. In August 1990, his manager and two of his roadies (along with fellow musician Stevie Ray Vaughan) were killed in a helicopter accident. Seven months later, on March 20, 1991, Clapton's four-year-old son Conor died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of his mother's friend's New York City apartment. He landed on the roof of an adjacent four-story building. After isolating himself for a period, Clapton began working again, writing music for a movie about drug addiction called "Rush". Clapton dealt with the grief of his son's death by co-writing "Tears In Heaven" with Will Jennings. A live performance of the song appears on Clapton's 1992 "Unplugged". "Unplugged" topped charts and was nominated for nine Grammy Awards the year it was released. Clapton made numerous public service announcements to raise awareness for childproofing windows and staircases.
In an interview with Daphne Barak, Clapton stated, "I almost subconsciously used music for myself as a healing agent, and lo and behold, it worked... I have got a great deal of happiness and a great deal of healing from music".
In an interview, Will Jennings said:
"Eric and I were engaged to write a song for a movie called "Rush". We wrote a song called 'Help Me Up' for the end of the movie... then Eric saw another place in the movie for a song and he said to me, 'I want to write a song about my boy.' Eric had the first verse of the song written, which, to me, is all the song, but he wanted me to write the rest of the verse lines and the release ('Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees...'), even though I told him that it was so personal he should write everything himself. He told me that he had admired the work I did with Steve Winwood and finally there was nothing else but to do as he requested, despite the sensitivity of the subject. This is a song so personal and so sad that it is unique in my experience of writing songs."
In 2004, "Tears in Heaven" was ranked number 362 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Lyrics:
Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong
And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven.
Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven?
I'll find my way
Through night and day,
'Cause I know I just can't stay
Here in heaven.
Time can bring you down,
Time can bend your knees.
Time can break your heart,
Have you begging please, begging please.
Beyond the door,
There's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more
Tears in heaven.
Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong
And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven.
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