The Yardbirds
For Your Love

I often wondered if there ever was a reason why, as long as the Yardbirds had Eric Clapton as a guitarist, Italy never bothered to release even a scrap of a single. However, if we scrutinize the matter closely, this isn't the case. Despite Jeff Beck's image being on the Italian cover of the 45 (who took over from Clapton, who was horrified by the group's pop turn!) when the Yardbirds recorded the song, the solo guitarist was indeed the future Cream, who, in truth, only made a small contribution, hardly putting in any effort and not even playing the hint of a solo; he would have rather recorded a cover of an Otis Redding song! "For Your Love" was written by the nineteen-year-old Graham Gouldman (future member of 10cc) who, in truth, was thinking of the Beatles when he composed it, so much so that he wanted them to record it! As we well know, fortunately that did not happen, and so the Yardbirds, with this 45, finally rose to fame, after being rejected by CBS and Decca and having secured a contract with Columbia, recruited Beck (after a refusal from Jimmy Page). One of the many curiosities about the recording of this song is the intro: Brian Auger was chosen to play it on the organ, but to everyone's disbelief, it was realized that there was neither an organ nor a piano available at the time; thus, Auger played the beginning (which repeats the accompaniment chords throughout the song) with a harpsichord that was available, thinking - in his heart - that no pop music lover would ever buy a record with a harpsichord in it! Fortunately, that did not happen, and the song, despite its somewhat elementary structure (those initial chords were the first prey of anyone learning to play guitar), comes out with strength and absolutely winning flair, thanks also to the drumming bongos played by Denny Pierce. The counter-time effect of the drums is striking, Relf's voice is beautiful and clear, and the choruses assault the song, continuously scaling the notes, while the beauty comes with the chorus, which completely changes tempo and evolves, crumpling on itself. The B-side, titled "Got To Hurry," is signed by a certain Oscar Rasputin, behind whom was hidden Giorgio Gomelsky, and in this case, Clapton gets more intense, probably because he felt this piece was much closer to his way of understanding a song. There's a lot of bluesy vein, and Eric's swan song is hailed with his electric guitar throughout, also because it's an instrumental piece, thus very inclined to leave space for the guitarist; from which comes a killer solo that should be remembered along with the rest of Clapton's work as one of the most intense farewells in history for a guitarist who decided to leave a group. If, in your collection, you own the personal copy of this single, you can live in peace, calmly!