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Layla
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Featured in Episode
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Artist(s)
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Top Chart Position (Hot 100)
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51 (April 30, 1971, two weeks)
10 (August 5, 1972, one week) |
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Year Released
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1971 & 1972
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Album
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Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
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Writer(s)
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Eric Clapton & Jim Gordon
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RIAA Certification
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NONE
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Sequence song appears
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Playing on boat
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Previous Song
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Next Song
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"Layla" is a song by Derek and the Dominos, featured on the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs in 1971 and released as a single that year. It appeared in the Miami Vice episode "Line of Fire".
Notes[]
- While the song is technically performed by Derek and the Dominos, many people erroneously credit it to Eric Clapton as a solo act (a mistake that Crockett makes himself in the show). The misconception likely stems from its frequent inclusion on Eric Clapton compilations and live albums.
- "Layla" has the dubious honor of being the shortest sample of popular music heard in the entire series -- around 4.5 seconds of it are heard before Joey Hardin turns it off, somewhat understating, "OK, so he's good..." (referring to Clapton). The only shorter music sample in the series was "Rubber Love" by Moon and the Blowguns, heard for barely 1.5 seconds in "Like a Hurricane", but in that instance both the song and the performing artist were "fake" and created specifically for the show.
- The song has been released as a single three times; twice by Derek & The Dominos (originally in 1971 and then again in 1972 after the release of Clapton's Eric Clapton at His Best compilation), and again by Eric Clapton in an acoustic rendition in 1992, taken from his Unplugged album. The 1972 release reached the Billboard Top 10, the highest of any release.
- Contrary to popular belief, it is actually Duane Allman who plays the slide guitar solo on the song, and not Clapton.
- "Layla" was written about Clapton's love for George Harrison's then-wife Pattie Boyd. Clapton and Boyd eventually married in 1979, two years after her divorce from Harrison, but they divorced in 1988 (after he had two children, including his son Conor, with two different women) in the midst of Clapton's infidelity. Conor's death in 1991 was the inspiration for Clapton's moving "Tears From Heaven", also featured on the Unplugged album.
- In 1989 Phil Collins and Eric Clapton would get together to write and record the song "I Wish It Would Rain Down", which was a major hit in the US and UK in early 1990. Phil Collins' music had been featured various times throughout Miami Vice. Collins also played drums, sang backing vocals and co-wrote several of the songs on Clapton's enormously successful 1986 album August.
- The song is one of several featured in Miami Vice that was performed at the iconic Live Aid event in 1985 -- Clapton played it at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, along with "She's Waiting".