Layla

First saw the album displayed in a record store in Cambridge, Mass, in January of 1971. I was there in Cambridge visiting my soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend; she was in Cambridge for the month on some kind of work/study arrangement with her college. In contrast, I had just dropped out of college after one semester (Told my parents it was a leave of absence, which on paper it was, but in my heart I believed I would never go back.)

So I was adrift, and I’d hitch-hiked up to Cambridge with the idea that I would re-connect with Fran and somehow restart my life.

Pure delusion. In reality, she had been trying to let me down easy for some time but I was not getting the message. So she kept busy at work during the days, leaving me plenty of time to wander around Cambridge, about $1.25 to my name, in the bitter cold.

Ducked into a record store - not that I could buy anything; more to just get warm for a few minutes - and as I looked at the album for the first time, my initial thought was, whoa, that is one ugly album cover. Seriously. Second thought was, I really need to hear this when I get back to Ardsley - most of my friends were hardcore Clapton fans, and most were not as broke as me, so one of them had undoubtedly already bought it.

After about three nights of Fran not sleeping with me, I could no longer maintain the fantasy that we were going to reunite any time soon, so, with my boots now soaked from trudging through the slush, I thumbed my way back to NY.

As I’d figured, I was able to find a friend who had the album and we all congregated in my parents’ living room later that week, while my folks were both at work. My house was the preferred choice because we had the nicest stereo - a giant teak Scandinavian-style cabinet about seven feet long, with fabric-covered speakers built into each end.

This was still a time when groups of people would listen to a whole album, start to finish, without much talking, almost like going to the movies. So, we did just that.

We all loved it, though we probably argued about which tracks were the strongest. Early favorites out of the gate were “Bell Bottom Blues” and “Anyday”, but they were subsequently blown out of the water by the title track.

“Layla” - god, how great it was just to listen to it the first few times, brand new, long before anyone called it a “classic rock anthem”. That opening riff, like a hieroglyph of fire in the sky, bursting into being so fiercely the whole world can see it, then repeating, with a slightly varied resolve; then the whole band storming in like warriors on horseback.

Then those riders, led by the figures of burning light, ride up and down steep hills, till they break into a full gallop as the main song finishes, with the lead guitars at the very tops of their necks till the melodies become distant sirens and the vocals are wolf howls, because you’ll never be with her, and the world may as well come to an end.

But wait; there’s still the coda or outro or afterlude or whatever you want to call it.

My son asked me not long ago what purpose this whole final passage serves; we’ve just experienced this driven, raging rock song when out of nowhere come these melodramatic acoustic piano chords that introduce an entirely different melody; a gentle rollling cymbal flourish flares, fades; the guitars and bass join in, and now we’re in a whole new song, seemingly.

OK. But no. After you’ve roared yourself hoarse and punched a few walls, she’s still gone, and you have to find a way back to your life, to your friends, to the possibility of beauty and happiness. Even still blinded by tears, you need to blink and breathe and sail on, on wave after wave of desire and grief.

Till at last you reach the harbor. The band goes nearly silent, except for the final ultra-high guitar trills, like the cries of birds floating and circling in the sky, high, high above.

That’s why the coda’s there.

Of course, don’t go thinking that a few listenings to “Layla” taught me any of this. I continued to cling to hopes for a joyful reconciliation with my ex until April of that year, when she finally showed me the door in terms that a coma victim could have understood.

I walked out of her parents’ house and stood in the middle of that suburban street under a flawless blue sky for some time. (Early afternoon on a weekday - not much traffic).

Adolescent love is dangerously capable of wiring itself like a suicide bomber to absurd emotional equations. Like: “Without you, I am nothing”.

So on that quiet, sunny afternoon, I was forced to finally test that equation.

“I am now without her; am I now nothing?”

And for what was probably only a minute but seemed much, much longer, I saw the world dissolve and felt myself stripped of my body, my mind, my past, and my future, till I was just a point, a dot, a tiny mark in space.

But I did not disappear. In fact, as I remembered to breathe,I began to grow back. I felt the cool breeze at my back, the warm sun on my face; I saw the trees and the sky, and I heard birds singing.

And I began to walk.