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Eric Clapton - Golden Ring

Eric Clapton - Golden Ring Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Backless
Released: 1978

Golden Ring Lyrics

Golden Ring

When asked to name his favorite song out of his own catalogue during an October 1999 interview for the VH1 show, Flix, Eric Clapton chose this song. The episode was dedicated to the Rob Reiner film, The Story Of Us, for which Eric composed the soundtrack. He said he picked the song as his all-time personal favorite because it's obscure and people don't know it and it's about marriage (the theme of the movie).

Eric wrote this song during the 1978 sessions for Backless. In the tour program for his 1979 North American Tour, he had this to say about it: "The best thing that happened on Backless were the things that happened at the time. I got away with one song on there, 'Golden Ring,' which I think is the strongest song on the album, because I wrote it because I was fed up with the general sort of apathy of everyone involved, and I just thought, 'Well, I'll take a song in there and whether they like it or not, we'll do it, they'll learn it and record it, and we'll put it on the record and that's that!' And that kind of conviction carried the thing through. I spoke with Don Williams [an American Country & Western Cult Artist] just before Christmas and I told him I liked his album, and he said 'Golden Ring' was his favorite track, too, because it was the only one that came through with any kind of feeling, with strength. And if you listen to it, there's virtually nothing to it. Songs like that are caused by situations, but situations of that extremity don't happen every day, thank God." (thanks, DeeTheWriter - Saint Petersburg, Russia Federation, for above 2)

Although they share the same title, this song should not be confused with the hit 1976 duet, "Golden Ring," by George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

Eric fell in love with Pattie Boyd while she was still married to his friend George Harrison. When the pair finally got together in the mid-'70s, things were not as rosy as he imagined they would be. The complicated Eric-Pattie (whom he nicknamed "Nell")-George triangle inspired this song. He explained in his 2007 autobiography: "[The song] was written about the situation between me, Nell, and George. It referred in part to her response to the news that George was getting married again. She took it quite hard, and I, in my arrogance, found that hard to understand. So I wrote this song about the peculiarity of our triangle, which finishes with the words

If I gave to you a golden ring,
Would I make you happy, would I make you sing?"

Eric Clapton - Tulsa Time

Eric Clapton - Tulsa Time Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Backless
Released: 1978

Tulsa Time Lyrics

I left Oklahoma, drivin' in a Pontiac
Just about to lose my mind
I was goin' to Arizona, maybe on to California
Where the people all live so fine

My baby said I was crazy
My Momma called me lazy
I was goin' to show 'em all this time
'Cause you know I ain't no fool
An' I don't need no more schoolin'
I was born to just walk the line

Livin' on Tulsa Time, livin' on Tulsa time
Well, you know I've been through it
When I set my watch back to it
Livin' on Tulsa time

Well, there I was in Hollywood
Wishin' I was doin' good
Talkin' on the telephone line
But they don't need me in the movies
And nobody sings my songs
Guess I'm just wastin' time

Well, then I got to thinkin'
Man, I'm really sinkin'
And I really had a flash this time
I had no business leavin'
And nobody would be grievin'
If I went on back to Tulsa time

Livin' on Tulsa time, livin' on Tulsa time
Gonna set my watch back to it
'Cause you know I've been through it
Livin' on Tulsa time

Livin' on Tulsa time, livin' on Tulsa time
Gonna set my watch back to it
'Cause you know I've been through it
Livin' on Tulsa time

Writer/s: FLOWERS, DANIEL W.
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Tulsa Time Song Chart

This song was originally recorded by the Texas songwriter Don Williams; it was written by his guitarist Danny Flowers. The song is about a guy who leaves Oklahoma for the bright lights of Hollywood, but discovers that he is much happier back home where he can set his watch to "Tulsa Time," where things happen at a much slower pace.

The original version of this song was released earlier in 1978 on Don Williams' album Expressions. Clapton was into American roots music and had recorded Williams' song "We're All the Way" on his 1977 album Slowhand. When it came time to record Backless, he included this song and released it as a single, backed with "Cocaine," a song written by the Tulsa musician J.J. Cale.

The original 1978 single didn't chart, but a live version taken from a show at the Budokhan Temple in Japan was issued in 1980 and made #30 US.

When he recorded this, four members of Clapton's band were from Oklahoma: bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jamie Oldaker, organist Dick Simms and backup singer Marcy Levy. Radle, Oldaker and Simms were all from Tulsa and had a band together called the Tulsa County Band, which helped forge the "Tulsa Sound," a melding of country and rock. Clapton was smitten with this sound, and used these musicians to create it on his Slowhand and Backless albums. On his next album, Just One Night, Clapton switched to British musicians.

For a while, Clapton opened his shows with this song, including the Budokhan show the single was taken from.