Eric Clapton Reveals How 'Tears in Heaven' Helped Him Grieve Son's Death in Newly Resurfaced Interview

Mar. 15, 2025

Eric Clapton attends ‘Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars’ during the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on September 10, 2017 in Toronto, Canada.Photo:Isaiah Trickey/FilmMagic

Isaiah Trickey/FilmMagic

Just before he took the stage in 1992 to record what would become the best-selling live album of all time,Eric Claptonreflected on thedeath of his young son, Conor, and how he’d used music to help him heal.

“Tears in Heaven” was written about the star’s son Conor, who died at 4 years old after falling from the window of a New York City apartment building in March 1991. Clapton — who shared the child with Italian actress and model Lory Del Santo — wrote the song for the soundtrack of the 1991 movieRush.

“It was really needed to illustrate loss because of what happens in the movie, and it was a good opportunity for me to write about my son, about the loss of my son, and also have somewhere to put it, to channel it,” Clapton says in the resurfaced interview. “And I really wanted to say something about what had happened to me and the opportunity the movie gave me was excellent, because it meant I could write this song for the film and express my own feelings.”

“I do intend to make these things known and I will play them in concert and put them on record,” he says. “And it is, for me, a healing process and I think it’s important that you share that with people that love your music.”

Eric Clapton Unplugged album cover.Amazon

Amazon

“Tears in Heaven” was a major success and won threeGrammy Awards, including record of the year, song of the year and best male pop vocal performance.

“It’s a very personal matter, but I never met my father, and I’d realized it when I was with my son — the closest I ever came to looking in my father’s eyes was when I looked in my son’s eyes,” he says. “So I wrote a song about that. It was kind of a strange, like a strange cycle thing that occurred to me and another thing that I felt I would like to share.”

Eric Clapton performs onstage during Day 2 of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival at Crypto.com Arena on September 24, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Kevin Winter/Getty

Kevin Winter/Getty

Clapton later opened up more about life as a father in his 2007 autobiography, revealing that his daughter Ruth — who was born to Yvonne Kelly in 1985, while Clapton was still married toex-wife Pattie Boyd— helped him cope with his grief.

He went on towelcome daughtersJulie Rose, 23, Ella May, 22, and Sophie Belle, 19, with wife Melia McEnery, whom he married in 2002.

Eric Clapton Unplugged… Over 30 Years Lateris premiering in select theaters on Monday, Jan. 27 and Tuesday, Jan. 28. It will be released for streaming on Paramount+ on Feb. 12.

source: people.com