My Father's Eyes (song)
"My Father's Eyes" is a song written and performed by Eric Clapton and produced by Clapton himself and Simon Climie. It was released as a single in 1998 and was featured on the album Pilgrim. The song reached the top 40 peaking at number sixteen and spent five weeks at number two on the Hot adult Contemporary chart. "My Father's Eyes" won a Grammy award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. The song is inspired by the fact that Clapton never met his father, who died in 1985. It also refers to the brief life of Clapton's son Conor, who died at age four after falling from an apartment window. "In it I tried to describe the parallel between looking the eyes of my son, and the eyes of the father that I never met, through the chain of our blood", said Clapton in his autobiography. He retired the song in 2004, along with Tears in Heaven. "My Father's Eyes" describes how Clapton wishes he knew his father.
Clapton performed this track for the first time in 1992 and 1996 in both electric and unplugged versions, which were completely different from the original 1998 release.
"My Father's Eyes" was resurrected for the One More Car, One More Rider tour in 2001.
In his 2007 autobiography, Clapton wrote that he has effectively retired this song, as well as Tears in Heaven, from live performance.
Read more about My Father's Eyes (song): Music Video, Track Listing
Famous quotes containing the words father and/or eyes:
“Every boy was supposed to come into the world equipped with a father whose prime function was to be our father and show us how to be men. He can escape us, but we can never escape him. Present or absent, dead or alive, real or imagined, our father is the main man in our masculinity.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)