songs about Pattie Boyd

As wife and "muse" to George Harrison then Eric Clapton, Pattie Boyd has inspired some classic songs - George's Something, and Eric's Layla and Wonderful Tonight - plus this one you may not know, Ashton, Gardner and Dyke's Sweet Patti O'Hara Smith:

Ashton, Gardner & Dyke were one hit wonders in the early seventies which is surprising given what a great singer Tony Ashton was.

Back to Eric Clapton. Wonderful Tonight was actually a bit of a dig, written while Eric encouraged or perhaps hassled Pattie to get ready for a night out.

If you listen to the original demo of You're Beautiful by James Blunt, you can hear that it owed rather a lot to Wonderful Tonight so you could argue that's another classic that Pattie inspired:

the original demo of Without You, the song made famous by Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey

Joe writes: The person who sent this to me wrote "Think you might be interested in hearing this. The original demo (different middle eight and no chorus!) of 'Without You'. This is Peter Ham at his Fender Rhodes in 1969 knocking out a song that would earn the industry millions and that he would never see a single penny from and that would ultimately drive both him and his best friend and co-writer to commit suicide. This is the most tragic tale in the annals of pop."

For more on this, read Peter Ham's Wikipedia entry, or this piece from his official website, written by the mother of his child.

Peter Ham - Without You (demo) (not on iTunes, but here's a link to buy the album from whence it came, on Amazon.com)