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Derek & the Dominos - Thorn Tree in the Garden

Derek & the Dominos - Thorn Tree in the Garden Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Released: 1971

Thorn Tree in the Garden Lyrics

Thorn Tree in the Garden

Eric Clapton was already a legendary guitarist when this was released, but in this group, he was simply another member and did his best to remain anonymous. The other members were outstanding session musicians. The band formed after working on George Harrison's album All Things Must Pass.

This was written by Bobby Whitlock, who also sang lead. He wrote many songs on the album and although he is know for his keyboard work, he played a variety of instruments with the group. He recorded with Delaney And Bonnie before forming Derek and the Dominos with Clapton, Jim Gordon and Carl Radle. Duane Allman also came to the sessions and played on some of the songs, including this one.

Whitlock: "I was living at The Plantation in the valley - you remember the shootout at The Plantation in the Leon Russell song. I was living there with Indian Head Davis and Chuck Blackwell and Jimmy Constantine - there were about 13 of us in this house in Sherman Oaks in the valley. I had a little dog and a little cat. One guy told me to get rid of my dog and cat because there wasn't room. I took my cat out to Delaney's house in Hawthorn, and when I got back my little dog was gone. This one guy in the house had taken my dog and done away with it. That was my only friend - this was the first time I had been anywhere outside of Macon, Georgia or the Memphis area. All of this was new to me, and I have an animal thing. I wanted to punch him out, and I thought, 'No, you can't do that,' so I went to my bedroom and sat down. I was thinking about a snake in the grass and some other ideas and I thought, 'He's the thorn tree in my garden.' I had this beautiful garden built in my consciousness where I was safe and secure with my little dog and my cat, and there's this thorn tree - that would be the guy who had my little dog put away. I wrote the song and it just came out of me. I hadn't even put it on paper, and I went out of my bedroom and knocked on his door. I said, 'Come here, I want to play you something.' We sat down at the table in the kitchen and I played him that song. He said, 'Wow, Bobby, that's beautiful.' I said, 'You're the thorn tree. There's going to come a day when I have the opportunity to record this song, and the whole world will know about it. You'll know what you did to me for the rest of your life.' I didn't realize it was going to go on the end of one of the biggest-selling records of all time. That was the furthest thing from my mind."

Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs is a double album. It was already mixed when they went back to tag the piano part on the end of the song "Layla." As they were listening back, the producer, Tom Dowd, realized they had room for one more song. Clapton suggested this, so they recorded it and used it as the last song on the album.

Whitlock: "Eric and Duane and Jim and Carl and myself all got around one microphone. Tom Down came out and placed us just so; everybody was a certain distance in and out, and we did it just like that. I was sitting on a bar stool - Eric was to my left, Duane was directly across from me, Carl was to my right and Jim was between Duane and Eric with a little bell. Carl was playing a pedal bass, Duane was on Dobro and Eric was playing acoustic guitar with a pick next to me. I was picking with my fingers.

Before he died of Leukemia, Tom Dowd did an interview in Producer magazine where he called this "The Perfect Stereo Recording."

The theme of the album is unrequited love. Says Whitlock, "It's all about love anyway. There is no love of this and not that. There's no measure of it. Whether it's a dog, your mother, dad, brother, sister, your companion, your horse or your neighbor, it is that one thing. It doesn't have a distinction. There's no barrier, it's just one thing that encompasses everything if you stop and think about it."

In 2002, Whitlock and his wife Kim played acoustic versions of this and other songs from the album at shows in the Northeast United States. They got a great response and realized there was a demand for these songs, since they hadn't been played in about 30 years. They formed The Domino Label and released a live album from one of these shows called Other Assorted Love Songs. (For more on Derek and the Dominos, check out our Bobby Whitlock interview.)

Derek & the Dominos - I Am Yours

Derek & the Dominos - I Am Yours Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Released: 1970

I Am Yours Lyrics

I am yours.
However distant you may be,
There blows no wind but wafts your scent to me,
There sings no bird but calls your name to me.
Each memory that has left its trace with me
Lingers forever as a part of me.
First Verse
First Verse
I am yours.

Writer/s: CLAPTON, ERIC PATRICK/NIZAMI, ?
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

I Am Yours Song Chart

Most of the lyrics are from Persian poet Nizami's The Story of Layla and Majnun, which also inspired the song "Layla."

The composer credit on this reads "Clapton/Nizami." Clapton used so much of Nizami's text that he gave the poet a songwriting credit.

Duane Allman played guitar on this. Clapton asked him to join these sessions after seeing him perform with The Allman Brothers.

Derek & the Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues

Derek & the Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos
Album: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Released: 1970

Bell Bottom Blues Lyrics

Bell Bottom Blues, you made me cry
I don't want to lose this feeling
And if I could choose a place to die
It would be in your arms

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
Give me one more day, please
I don't want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay

It's all wrong, but it's all right
The way that you treat me baby
Once I was strong but I lost the fight
You won't find a better loser

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
Give me one more day, please
I don't want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay

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 'cause
I don't want to fade away
Give me one more day, please
I don't want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay

Bell bottom blues, don't say goodbye
I'm sure we're gonna meet again
And if we do, don't you be surprised
If you find me with another lover

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 'cause
I don't want to fade away
Give me one more day, please
I don't want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay

I don't want to fade away
Give me one more day please
I don't want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay

I don't want to fade away
Give me one more day please
I don't want to fade away
In your heart I want to stay

Writer/s: CLAPTON, ERIC PATRICK
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Bell Bottom Blues Song Chart

Bell Bottoms are pants that are very tight in the top but flare out at the bottom. They were popular in the '60s.

Derek and the Dominos formed after Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon worked on George Harrison's solo album, All Things Must Pass. They went to England and played a bunch of small clubs all over Europe, with Clapton and Whitlock writing songs along the way. The band was in France when the inspiration for this song hit. Whitlock told us: "Eric met this girl, she was like a Persian princess or something, and she wore bell bottoms. She was all hung up on him - he gave her a slide that Duane (Allman) had given him and he wrapped it in leather and she wore it around her neck. She didn't speak a word of English and they had to date through an interpreter. That relationship did not last but a week. He started the song over there, then when we got back to England, we finished it up in his TV room in Hurtwood Edge."

This was released as the B-side of "Layla." The song "Layla" is about Clapton's love for Pattie Harrison, who at the time was married to George Harrison. The entire album is about unrequited love, but this song is not about Pattie.

This is the only studio album Derek and the Dominos recorded. They attempted another, but the sessions imploded over what Whitlock describes as "Ego Problems."

Bobby Whitlock didn't initially get a songwriting credit on this track, but that changed thanks to an act of kindness from Clapton. When we spoke with Bobby in 2015 , he explained how the song came together and the saga of the songwriting credits. Said Whitlock: "Just before the 40th anniversary of Layla came out, Eric asked as they were packaging everything, 'What's Bobby going to get out of this?' And Michael [Eaton, Clapton's manager] told him, 'Nothing, because he sold all of his royalties. He sold all of his vested interest in it.' Well, unbeknownst to me, Eric and Michael took their attorneys in to the respective Warner/Chappel and Universal and all the other companies and bought back my rights to my income and restored them and gave them back to me. Out of the blue.

So all of my royalties have come back. And now it's even more so, because it hasn't been a month-and-a-half ago that I wrote him to explain how 'Bell Bottom Blues' came about, and I sent it to Eric and to Michael. Someone had come online and says something about, 'Is this true that 'Bell Bottom Blues' was written about a pair of trousers?'

And I said, Yeah, well, it was that and this girl in France that Eric was seeing for a little while while we were there. I'd forgotten about Pattie [Boyd - subject of 'Layla'] asking him about those pants. But anyway, before I would answer this and put it out publicly online, I decided, Well, I probably ought to write Eric.

I had his e-mail address, but I'd never written him. I never asked for anything. You know, I don't want anything from anybody, especially him. I wrote to him and said, 'I just want to clear this up, in case you've forgotten, this is how it came.' I said, 'You came to me at Hurtwood [Clapton's house in England where the band would rehearse], I was standing in the doorway of the TV room and you walked up to me and you said, 'What do you think of this?''

He was holding the guitar and he sang me the first two verses, all except for the last line on the second verse. And I said, 'You won't find a better loser.'

And then we went into the TV room and wrote the chorus, the bridge: '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.' And then Eric comes in: 'I don't want to fade away, give me one more day.' And then the last verse, he wrote three quarters of it, and I came in with the very last line. I said, 'That's how it goes. I hope this helps refresh your memory.' And that was the end of it.

Well, within three minutes he wrote back, 'He's right, he's absolutely right.' He was writing to Michael, saying, 'Yeah, I've been thinking about this.'

Well, they have gone to all of the PR reps, ASCAP, BMI, all of the people, Universal, all the folks that changed it around. So from now on forever, 'Bell Bottom Blues' is going to read 'Written by Eric Clapton and Bobby Whitlock.'"

The entire album was recorded in 10 days. They recorded this early in the sessions, a week before "Layla." There were some very talented people in the studio that made it work. Says Whitlock, "When you let a horse run a race, it will run its finest race on its own. When you get some musicians and you get some creative people, you give them the opportunity to do what they're supposed to do, and they'll do just that. Given the right circumstances, they'll perform at their peak. They'll draw from the source. These songs don't come out of your head. They're not something you sit down and figure out. They're things that flow through you - we were just instruments, just like the instruments in our laps. We were provided an opportunity to lock ourselves away and let the creative principle of the universe flow through us."

Clapton recorded most of this while lying on the floor and strung out on drugs. The band did a lot of drugs at this time, but Clapton feels it did not hurt the recording process.

Frandsen De Schonberg is the French artist who painted the picture used for the album cover. The band was staying with his son, Emile, when Clapton met the bell bottom princess.

Hal David wrote a different song with the same title in the '50s. He would later team up with Burt Bacharach and write many famous songs, including "Walk On By" and "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?"

Clapton performed an acoustic version of this on his 2001 Reptile tour.

Along with his wife Coco Carmel, Bobby Whitlock recorded a new version of this for their album Other Assorted Love Songs. For more on Derek and the Dominos, check out our Bobby Whitlock interview.