Tears in Heaven" is a song by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings, from the 1991 Rush film soundtrack. The song was written about the pain and loss Clapton felt following the death of his four-year-old son, Conor.[1] Conor fell from a window of a 53rd-floor New York apartment building owned by his mother's friend on March 20, 1991. Clapton arrived at the apartment shortly after the accident.[2]
"Tears in Heaven" is one of Clapton's most successful songs, as it reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the U.S. The song also stayed three weeks as No. 1 on the American adult contemporary chart in 1992.
Jennings, who worked with Clapton on the song, was reluctant at first to help him write a personal song.[3] The song was initially featured on the soundtrack to the film Rush, followed by the album Unplugged, and it won three Grammy Awards—Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 1993 Grammy Awards.[3] It also won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video in 1992.[4]
Clapton stopped playing it in 2004, as well as the song "My Father's Eyes", stating: "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. My life is different now. They probably just need a rest and maybe I'll introduce them for a much more detached point of view."[5] Clapton eventually resurrected both songs for his Old Sock tour in 2013.
Shortly after his single was released, he went on to the MTV Unplugged series and recorded a new version of the song