March 17, 1998 13:11

CLAPTON COURTS CONTROVERSY WITH VIOLENT LYRICS

[a]Eric Clapton[/a] has been criticised over lyrics to one of the songs off his recent album 'Pilgrim'...

Eric Clapton has been attacked by anti-domestic violence groups in the US and Great Britain for lyrics to a song on his latest album.

The song 'Sick And Tired' off the veteran blues rocker's latest album, 'Pilgrim', is the cause of the controversy, as it includes a verse where Clapton considers shooting a woman. The lyric ends with the line: "Then you won't bother me no more."

Britain's The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday (April 17) that the Boston-based Anti-Defamation League had protested to Clapton's record company, WEA, and asked him to change the lyrics. They have also asked him to donate some of the proceeds of the album to violence-prevention programmes.

The songs has also drawn criticism from British-based groups, with one refuge organiser saying the song was "offensive and insensitive".

A spokesman for Clapton in the US said last night that the lyrics were justified because they were in keeping with traditional blues music. None of his British spokespeople commented.

Clapton recently learnt that he was the son of a womanising Canadianmusician who had been stationed in Britain during World War II. A Canadian newspaper found the former-Cream guitarist's father was a hotel piano player, Edward Fryer, who had married at least four times and fathered several children.