So... I'm here in Nashville, TN visiting none other than the famous Snell of "Snell Said I had To" blog fame. (Her place is super cute, BTW, for those of you who know our beloved Snellycat. -ed.)
On the drive here to Nashville, Snell and I were chatting on the phone, in preparation for three days of non-stop chatting in person, about the book she's reading about Pattie Boyd. Now, Pattie Boyd, for you non-Beatles lovers (re: foolish people) was first the wife of Beatles' George Harrison (alava shalom)
and then, later, the wife of Eric Clapton. 
I was excited to hear Snell was reading that book, since I just finished Clapton's autobiography. I was anxious to compare notes and find out if Pattie reveals any more in her book that would give some hint as to how this woman, undoubtedly beautiful and probably quite poised and sexy, but still just a woman, managed to inspire some of the most beautiful, passionate and intensely longing songs ever written.
Sadly, Snell came up as empty as I did. She agreed as well that Pattie is a beautiful woman, no doubt. But if you think about some of the lyrics written about this woman, you would think she was some kind of Olivia-Newton-John-in-Xanadu-esque muse. Let's review some of these, shall we?
"If I could choose a place to die
It would be in your arms."
-Bell Bottom Blues, Derek & the Dominoes (aka one of Clapton's bands)
"Let's make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane.
Please don't say we'll never find a way
And tell me all my love's in vain."
-Layla, Derek and the Dominoes
"Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me"
-Something, The Beatles
"I feel wonderful because I see
The love light in your eyes.
And the wonder of it all
Is that you just don't realize how much I love you."
- Wonderful Tonight, Eric Clapton
The interesting thing about Pattie, it seems to me, is that every song she inspired became a rock anthem. Well, Bell Bottom Blues might be a bit of an underappreciated tune, but it is an anthem to me. I can't imagine what it would be like to inspire that kind of unapologetically (yup, I newly worded that word) passionate plea from a lover. He literally offers to crawl across the room to her and beg!
"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."
(This YouTube video is just music, no pictures. So you can come back and finish reading! I know, I'm a giver.)
He'd gladly do it! He won't just, you know, do it. He'll GLADLY do it. That's crazy. I can barely get myself to lean too far out of my way to pet Richie, whom I love tremendously. (By the way, Snell clearly feels the same on that one, because Richie is just outside her reach and she desperately wants to pet him, but doesn't want to get off the couch to do it. Now, granted, she doesn't have the same emotional attachment to him that I do, but you get my point.)
Is it a musician thing to feel things so passionately? Or juat to express them so passionately? Most of the men I have met in my life have felt that passionately about their favorite sports team, but not their women. In fact, now that I think about it, there are probably quite a few guys I have known who would maybe have offered to crawl across the floor for the Boston Red Sox or the Cleveland Indians.
Clearly, when these songs were written in the 70's, they didn't yet understand the dating rules set forth so eloquently by Swingers, where you never show actual interest lest you scare off the object of your obsession. If they had, Eric probably would have waited three days before he wrote a song about his baby. That would have been a different kind of song.
Did they just feel things more passionately then? But if you think back on some of the other love songs from that era, there are so few that are as emotional as the ones Pattie inspired. Or from any era.
I guess there really was something about the way she moved... I wonder if she can teach me.
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