Eric Clapton performs at Madison Square Garden
in New York, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Posted on 10/03/2006 5:44:51 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Eric Clapton rethinks playing 'Cocaine'
By The Associated Press
Mon Oct 2, 2:20 PM ET
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Eric Clapton is playing "Cocaine" in concert again. The recovering drug addict and alcoholic, who founded the Crossroads Centre addiction recovery center on the Caribbean island of Antigua, stopped performing the song written by J.J. Cale when he first got sober.
"I thought that it might be giving the wrong message to people who were in the same boat as me," Clapton recently told The Associated Press.
"But further investigation proved ... the song, if anything, if it's not even ambivalent, it's an anti-drug song. And so I thought that might be a better way to do it, to approach it from a more positive point of view. And carry on performing it as not a pro-drug song, but just as a reality check about what it does."
Clapton's band shouts out "dirty cocaine" during the song.
"It's one of those songs that you can take it any way you like," Clapton told the AP. "But it very clearly says in the opening verse, `If you wanna get down, down on the ground,' I mean, that's, I think, the focal point of the song. That's what the song's about, is that, you know, there's a price."
Clapton also said he missed playing "Cocaine," with its signature guitar riff, "just purely from a musical point of view."
Clapton, 61, is on the North American leg of his world tour. His duet CD with Cale, "The Road to Escondido," is scheduled for release Nov. 7.
Eric Clapton performs at Madison Square Garden
in New York, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
I think he got sick of Clintoon always requesting him to play it so he buckled and said "WTF, I'll start playing it to get that coke head off my back."
Btw, whre is Clapton's chin?
Its a great song. I hope he performs it at every concert
He looks like a Tom Turkey with that gobbler hanging from his chin.
Well maybe he will stop shooting the sheriff now.
Here is the perfect solution to this dilemma:
Keep playing the song, but change the words to be about fighting Islamofascism. It would again become a great hit!
and the tune is so catchy, it will really annoy the targets.
I bet he's missing having cocaine is more like it.
He's getting up eough in years that he should be singing about "Rogaine", not "Cocaine".
You're thinking of his other song- "I Shot the Towelhead"
"He's getting up eough in years that he should be singing about "Rogaine", not "Cocaine"."
Very good. Maybe a great ad.
The "Cocaine" riff has to be one of the 10 most recognizable ever.
What a helluva jam that song is.
He shaved his chin off, I guess! ;-P
I played drums in rock bands for 25 years and every time I would go to an audition and Cocaine was on the set list I would just say "Oh no, not again". That song, along with Sweet Jane were the cure for insomnia.
If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; rogaine. When your day is done and you wanna run; rogaine. She dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie; rogaine.
If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; rogaine. Dont forget this fact, you cant get it back; rogaine. She dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie; rogaine.
I wrote a parody once and called it "Caffeine."
A little later I wrote a parody of the Bryan Adams song, "Run to You," calling it "Run from You." It started out like this...
"You had designer jeans and a fancy car
I'm amazed at what your makeup can do for your acne scars...
There was a line in there about coyote bait, if I recall correctly.
I never really looked at things that way. It was just a song with a goofy theme and words that rhymed and made sense in the context of the theme.
Hey Eric, why don't you just play it much slower like you have with all your other songs.
Wait, I AM grown up. Drat!
(#^&%$ old finger don't work like they used too)
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