Bell Bottom Blues. It's being played loudly from the front room while my roommate plays guitar along with it. I'm really not sure what it is about the song that hits me deeply every time I hear it. It is, without a doubt, my favorite Derek and the Dominos song - and thereby, my favorite Eric Clapton song. I'd heard other songs throughout my early childhood, but this song stuck with me.
Maybe every time I heard it in my teen years, it sort of harkened back to the time in my life when I was first exposed to it - a childhood with tumultuous twists and turns at the hands of an abusive narcissist. It's difficult to say for sure. Regardless of exactly why – it didn't remotely remind me of that abuse, it was more about the intensity and depth of the emotions I felt as a child in that situation. I knew that love shouldn't hurt and that abuse took many forms. The saddest part is that even knowing those things all the way to my core at such a young age, I wasn't experienced at life enough to prevent the negative and skewed view of myself that I am only just learning to unravel 40 years later.
At some point in my junior year of high school, surrounded by hair metal bands galore, I managed to somehow reconnect with my love of blues music. I'd grown up in a household that, aside from the abuse, was filled with music. The fact that I never truly learned to play an instrument still amazes me, despite taking guitar lessons. Discovering boys and hanging out with friends pulled my attention away from the focus and discipline necessary to develop that skill, but the importance of music absolutely stuck. Most of what I remember from those early years in the 70s was southern rock. I had always credited my mother's first husband (that is all I will ever call him) with exposing me to music, likely because he had been a drummer, played guitar and our house was often filled with other musicians jamming. My affinity for blues music actually came from my mother's listening preferences. She loved rock without a doubt - something that later made her a borderline cool mom in the eyes of my friends - but those early experiences with Led Zepplin, the Beatles (yes, some of their stuff has that blues influence), George Harrison (my mother's all-time biggest crush next to Paul Anka), The Rolling Stones, and yes, Eric Clapton are tied her.
The moment I heard Bad Love, I was all about Clapton and digging into his earlier music like graduating depended on it. If it had, I would have been in the top 10 of my class. Stevie Ray Vaughan was another artist - gone far too soon - that shaped the latter half of my high school years. Of course, not everything Clapton did was technically blues - the whole country thing I wouldn't appreciate until many years later. Derek and the Dominos won me over completely. Layla - I mean, aside from his cover of I Shot the Sheriff and Wonderful Tonight, there isn't another song I remember from childhood so clearly, and let's be honest, what teenage girl isn't going to fall in love with that one. From there Let It Rain and Blues Power - not to mention Cream's Badge - and my affinity for Clapton began to really take root. Bell Bottom Blues, however, instantly became that one song I could listen to endlessly and never get tired of hearing. It still is.
The lyrics describe the agony of a relationship that's passed its expiration, but only from one person's perspective. It's the epitome of desperation and it inadvertently became the emotional reaction to nearly every breakup from a serious (at least as far as I was concerned) relationship. The gutwrenching heartbreak of being cheated on, left, broken up with and discarded. I am certain if there were a class in how to be the poster girl of broken record despondency, I would have aced it. Of course, it rarely had anything to do with the guys I'd forever call exes, it was more about the sad, unhealthy type of relationship I continued to find myself in. Always the wrong guy, always giving way more to the relationship and getting far less in return, never recognizing my own worth - the cycle of abuse sets some crazy patterns it can take a lifetime to correct. Not realizing that love isn't something that you should have to cling to for dear life or beg to have bestowed upon you, it's no surprise I've amassed a catalog of failed relationships. Love that isn't freely given or somewhat balanced in reciprocation isn't really love, after all.
So, while I absolutely continue to love the pangs of knowing I get when I hear the song, I don't actually want to be the one to crawl across the floor to someone who clearly doesn't love me, and I'd never want to beg anyone to take me back. And while it has that ring of young, inexperienced heartbreak - the kind that if, as a 17-yr old girl a guy had ever said to, I thought would prove a guy loved me - this battle-worn, relationship veteran understands loving the song doesn't mean having to live it. I'd like to say it's astonishing that I only arrived at that conclusion in the last couple of years, but sadly that's the truth. I am grateful that realization didn't taint my affinity for hearing the song over and over again, but moreover, I find a kind of peace in finally understanding I'm not destined to run the hamster wheel of disfunction and poor imitations of love.
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