From this morning's Today:
Nick Robinson: Without the pain would there have been the music?
Eric Clapton: Probably not. No. I think the only part that is regrettable, the most regrettable part is, I got drunk. And that part - it's like 20 years of drinking - where I did really offensive things. I was a nasty person, which I say in the movie...
Nick Robinson: You focus on an incident you are often reminded about in which you say you were 'semi-racist'. I mean you were racist on stage. You were fully...
Eric Clapton: Full tilt, yeah.
Nick Robinson: Words we don't normally use on the radio. Words like 'wog'. Words like 'coon'.
Eric Clapton: Yes.
Nick Robinson: To describe the people you wanted to get out of the country.
Eric Clapton: Yes, so I mean as a simple-minded working-class villager like me, which is what Brexit is all about, there was a sort of air of this around the early 70s. And I'm not excusing myself. It was an awful thing to do.
Nick Robinson: In a way that view had then...you praised Enoch Powell at the time...you think the roots of that are in Brexit?
Eric Clapton: I think so. Yeah. I think it was a gut-feeling referendum. I had ceased to be xenophobic and I was very concerned about all the people that had come here who might be asked to leave, so I voted to remain.
At which point Nick Robinson asked him if he was being offensive again now by smearing 17.4 million people as 'xenophobic'? No. He just moved on.
Nick Robinson has a massive void in his editorial integrity, sources close to critics of the BBC claim. Allegedly.
ReplyDeleteSome have speculated that his spectacles are a radio receiver and that it is via this cunning device that he is given instructions directly by the Russians on how to sow discord and disillusion throughout the land. Or so a well placed source told me. Interestingly, he has not denied the story. Make of that what you will.
DeleteNick Robinson has fallen for the sucker punch here. He works in line with the BBC mandate that all formerly rebellious ageing rock stars are 'one of their own' regardless of their lifetime history. All evidence points towards Clapton being somewhat different: a supporter of the Countryside Alliance, anti the anti-hunting lobby, country hotel owner etc.
ReplyDeleteOf course Clapton will say ...I think it was a gut-feeling referendum. I had ceased to be xenophobic and I was very concerned about all the people that had come here who might be asked to leave, so I voted to remain.... otherwise, he would be labelled as far-right or worse.
People like Clapton are media-savvy. Robinson fell for these apparently transformed opinions without question - typical BBC performance from 'one of their's' in awe of Clapton. There we are you see - Everyone's a winner.
I like the way Morissey messes with the BBC's collective mind. They can never quite make out whether to support him or not...Irish migrant background, working class, northern, gay...he ticks a lot of boxes but then he tweaks their tail with support for Brexit and other "controversial" comments on Islam and terrorism. They would love Morissey to do a Clapton style confession...fat chance of that!
ReplyDeleteI have the greatest respect for Clapton as a musician, but he is after all just another millionaire rock star completely removed from the concerns of ordinary people and the effects of mass immigration. The comments he made in the 70’s were reprehensible, and not a little bizarre considering his musical influences. But to equate that with Brexit is incredibly insulting to leave voters. It is not clear from that short transcript if Robinson is “leading the witness”, so to speak, but presumably he was wheeled on to make that point.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't clear from the programme either. It was a pre-recorded interview (with inserted music), so clearly edited. Just how heavily edited it was is impossible to know. This segment came between an anecdote about 'Layla' and something more about pain. I've tried Googling to see if Eric Clapton has been widely reported over his Brexit views, but he hasn't. He could just have come out with it.
DeleteAs a performer keen not to damage his successfully nurtured image with the BBC and MSM, of course Clapton is going to go with the flow and give an answer to a BBC question straight out of the handbook. Why step out of line? What good would being labelled as anything other than 'Metropolitan mainstream' achieve for him?
DeleteHe's good at the game.
Clapton has never come across to me as being particularly bright, likeable or in any way worthy of interest outside of his guitar playing.
ReplyDeleteEven then, the flashes of memorable invention are vastly outweighed by the proficient but otherwise dull and derivative stuff.
Even though he was supposedly a great mate of George Harrison he demonstrated it by stealing his wife and, in one doco I saw, describing his dead friend's other friends as "has been" guitarists.
Nice.