stublues February 17th, 2006 09:55AM  
Although this song has been widely viewed as a love song (for obvious reasons) Clapton says that actually it's a sarcastic look at how long his then-wife Patty took to get ready to go out.

anonymous June 10th, 2007 02:01PM  
This song is about George Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd who Eric Clapton fancied then later married, this is a fact. I know this for sure. Not about an escort service, Eric Clapton needing to pay for a date? I highly doubt that. Layla is also about her.

Anon. July 15th, 2008 12:33AM  
In her memoir (Wonderful Tonight), Patty Boyd says that this situation literally occured as she was trying on dresses before going to a party. Eventually Eric sang the opening of this song as his answer to her final query as to how she looked. She doesn't mention sarcasm.

anonymous May 10th, 2009 10:25PM  
You guys are retards. In his autobiography, "Clapton", he says its about his wife patty, who is taking a long time to get ready to go out and she asks clapton how she looks and he says you look wonderful tonight. He wrote the song while waiting for her to get ready. It's not sarcastic. And Layla IS about her too. It's not a drug metaphor. It has nothing to do with drugs. It's about the triangular situation between George Harrisson, Patty Boyd, and himself.

anonymous May 26th, 2009 10:15PM  
Yeah for real! Some of you guys need to look up stuff before you go blurting out random crap that is totally not true. It is also extremely dumb when you assume that half of these songs are about drugs. The last guy was right if you read his autobiography he straight up says it was about Patti. He was getting ticked off cuz she was taking a long time getting ready so he just sat down and dished out this song. It wasnt sarcastic he meant it in a romantic way as you dont need to spend so much time getting ready cuz you always look good. As for the whole Layla thing being also about drugs...it isnt!! He wrote it about Patti when she was still married to George Harrison. One of his friends showed him an Arabian love story called Layla and Majnun which was about how this man fell in love with a woman he couldnt have and went crazy. He felt that he was in a similar situation with Patti so he dubbed the song Layla. Layla is Patti!

anonymous January 1st, 2010 12:52PM  
This is clearly sung from the point of view of a little crippled fella.

At the start he's sat in his chair watching his wife get ready and waiting for her to do his hair/get him dressed.

"We go to a party,
And everyone turns to see
This beautiful lady
is walking around with me.

And then she asks me: "Do you feel alright?"
And I say "Yes, I feel wonderful tonight."


This is about his wife pushing him into the party, and everyone staring at him because he's in a wheelchair. She asks him if he's upset by the people looking but he isn't because he's in love with her so it's worth going out with her and that.

"So I give her the car keys,
and she helps me to bed."

Obviously he can't drive because his legs don't work, and she lifts him into bed when they get home. He says again that he doesn't mind being crippled because he loves the woman and she makes it ok.