Eric Clapton reveals how ‘Tears In Heaven’ helped him grieve the tragic loss of his son Conor

14 January 2026, 11:45

He's one of the greatest musicians to ever grace the airwaves.

Throughout his epic career spanning seven decades, Eric Clapton has written some of rock music's most enduring songs.

Renowned for his guitar playing, Clapton has made an enviable number of hits over the years.

But there's a particular song by the British rocker that's widely regarded as his most poignant, due to the reason it was written in the first place.

'Tears In Heaven' is a gorgeous, plaintive acoustic guitar ballad in which Clapton laments life without his boy Conor.

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It's one of the most tragic stories in rock music history, and an unimaginable event that nobody in this world should have to experience.

In 1991, when he was just four years old, Clapton's son Conor died after he fell out of a 53rd-floor window in the apartment where his mother was staying in New York City.

Because of the heartbreaking tragedy behind it, 'Tears In Heaven' has since become one of Eric Clapton's most famous songs.

This year, in a recently unearthed interview from 1992, Clapton revealed that writing the song helped him grieve his inconceivable loss.

Clapton wrote 'Tears In Heaven' after the death of Conor with songwriter Will Jennings, who has written lyrics for the likes of Steve Winwood (a frequent Eric Clapton collaborator), blues man B.B. King, and Roy Orbison.

Arguably the most notable songs Jennings wrote was 'My Heart Will Go On' for Titanic which Céline Dion sang, of course.

But 'Tears In Heaven' is no doubt the song that dealt with the greatest amount of personal emotion in its lyrics.

"Eric and I were engaged to write a song for a movie called Rush," Jennings revealed in a later interview.

"We wrote a song called 'Help Me Up' for the end of the movie... then Eric saw another place in the movie for a song and he said to me, 'I want to write a song about my boy.'"

"Eric had the first verse of the song written, which, to me, is all the song, but he wanted me to write the rest of the verse lines even though I told him that it was so personal he should write everything himself," Jennings continued.

"This is a song so personal and so sad that it is unique in my experience of writing songs."

Whilst they worked on the song in the studio, Jennings kept revising the lyrics to get the sentiment just right. He had no idea it'd be a huge hit, however.

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"It was furthest through from my mind, really. I was so involved in the sensitivity of the subject, and I didn't even think about that," he added.

"I'm passionate about all the songs I write, but it was just in another place entirely, another category."

After completing the song, Clapton wasn't sure he wanted to release it at all. But Lili Zanuck, the director of Rush, convinced him to let her use it in the film.

Clapton recalled that "her argument was that it might in some way help somebody – and that got my vote."

Eric Clapton Unplugged…Over 30 Years Later | Trailer | Paramount+

Now, in an unearthed interview from the MTV Unplugged sessions in 1992, Clapton reveals just how important writing 'Tears In Heaven' truly was.

He famously performed a stripped-back version of the song for MTV Unplugged, a live acoustic set that was later released as a live album.

Before the performance unfolded, however, he revealed the extent of emotion he poured into the song.

“It was really needed to illustrate loss because of what happens in the movie, and it was a good opportunity for me to write about my son, about the loss of my son, and also have somewhere to put it, to channel it,” Clapton says.

“And I really wanted to say something about what had happened to me and the opportunity the movie gave me was excellent, because it meant I could write this song for the film and express my own feelings.”

Eric Clapton - Tears In Heaven [Unplugged...Over 30 Years Later] (Official Live Video)

The extended remastered special (Eric Clapton Unplugged… Over 30 Years Later now streaming on Paramount Plus) shows Clapton saying he thought his audience "would be very surprised" if he didn't make some reference to his loss.

In fact, he adds that losing Conor being such a public figure, he “wouldn’t want to insult them by not including them in my grief, in a way.”

“I do intend to make these things known and I will play them in concert and put them on record,” he says. “And it is, for me, a healing process and I think it’s important that you share that with people that love your music.”

Thanks to his gorgeous performance of 'Tears In Heaven', Clapton went on to win Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal in 1993.

His MTV Unplugged album also went on to become the best-selling live album of all time.

Nowadays though, Eric has stopped performing 'Tears In Heaven' – and understandably so.

2004 was the last time that Eric performed the heartfelt song about his son, as well as 'My Father's Eyes', which he wrote about never getting the opportunity to meet his dad.

"I didn't feel the loss anymore, which is so much a part of performing those songs. I really have to connect with the feelings that were there when I wrote them. They're kind of gone and I really don't want them to come back, particularly," he admitted that year. "My life is different now."