Textual Analysis 2

This second textual analysis is a song by Eric Clapton called "tears in heaven".

This song has a specific background which relates his lyrics to real life. On march the 20Th 1991, his son Connor died from falling from a window of the 53rd-floor New York apartment of his mother's friend. Clapton, who arrived at the apartment shortly after the accident, was visibly distraught for months . He wrote this song dedicated to his son. Though this wasn't his typical style of music, it was considered more soul or slow pop due to the fact its really slow paced with calm drums, a calm voice and acoustic guitars, rather than his known style of rock with bombastic drums, distorted guitars Etc

The video starts off with an establishing shot of a beach, which then cuts to a woman running across the sand. which then cuts to Eric Clapton and his guitar.
This video is narrative based mainly because of Eric singing the lyrics of what seems like losing someone special, this is shown by Eric being in a small somewhat dark room, full of instruments just playing an acoustic guitar, with a sad face, just performing on his guitar and singing. The lyrics being said such as "Would you know my name, if i saw you in heaven, would it be the same, if i saw you in heaven" shows that its narrative that if he saw his son, would it be the same obviously, but during the video it cuts to another scene, were it looks as though two people in love, seem to look at each other through different shots such as the man looking into his rear view mirror, and then at another cut/scene a woman is looking into the camera, making it seem as though they have a connection.

During the lyrics "time can break your heart, having begging please, Begging please" there is a juxtaposition of those lyrics being said and a man looking down in shame, only to hug what looks like his daughter with an apology.

There are loads of cuts to different scenes when the lyrics start off a "beyond the door" there is a man trying to commit suicide, but then stopped by a woman, and it seems this woman is looking after him, which was something Eric Clapton couldn't do for his son, which he may be trying to relate that if only he was there sooner rather than later, maybe his son would still be alive.

The video then cuts to close up of a woman opening her eyes, which she sees a man on the floor looking in pain, this is happening when the lyrics are saying "I must be strong and carry on", after that it cuts back to Eric with various panning shots as it has all video of him then saying "cause i know, i don't belong, here in heaven" which states that he cant do anything about his sons death and that whats done is done. It then cuts to a close up of a woman hugging a man, you also see a man crying, this connotes that they are parting each other, and they happened to be a very close couple.

The end of the video you see a woman staring at another girl, with bloodshot eyes that seemed to be the result of crying, which then cuts back to a close up of Eric playing the end of his riff on his guitar, to then fade to black.

My conclusion of this essay is that, this song was a meaningful masterpiece from Eric Clapton and his unfortunate event that led to his sons death, its a slow rock/soul song and the song being about something that is lost, and with lyrics like 'would you know my name, if i saw you in heaven' stating the fact, would his son still recognise him even though hes in heaven, this is a very strong expressed feeling the artist emits from the song and lyrics.