The more Eric Clapton opens his gob about vaccination, the dumber he looks. He would be well advised to shut up and play his axe. While there is a minute possibility that Clapton did indeed get sick from his injection, I suspect that if he is now chronically ill, it may well be due to something else. But even if it was the jab that did him in, he has no business trying to persuade the world to avoid vaccination against Covid.There are enough data on immediate side effects to show that he is a real outlier and not the norm. And the idea that he was hypnotized into getting the jab. . . . well, I have no words.
See the tweet at the bottom for what is also my reaction.
Below is the first part of a two-part interview of Clapton by “The real music observer”, David Spuria. (A second part is promised.) This one is eighteen minutes long, and prompted the NY Post article below it.
The most bizarre part of this video is Clapton’s claim that he was manipulated by Big Pharma advertising into getting a covid jab. The notes below, which are from the interview, were reprinted in the Post.
Eric Clapton’s career “had almost gone anyway” until his campaign against conventional medicine took off.
The 76-year-old musician went on the Real Music Observer YouTube channel to discuss how his life has changed since reluctantly taking AstraZeneca’s therapy in 2021. Clapton has since become outspoken about his anti-vaccination stance.
He claimed that he’d been duped into getting the COVID-19 jab by subliminal messaging in pharmaceutical advertising — and urged others not to fall for it.
“Whatever the memo was, it hadn’t reached me,” he said, referring to the “mass formation hypnosis” conspiracy theory, which gained traction in 2021 as part of anti-vaccine propaganda. (In related circles, it’s also been called “mass formation psychosis.”)
Credited to Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet, the theory essentially points to a sort of mind control that has taken over society, allowing for unscrupulous leaders to easily manipulate populations into, for example, accepting vaccines or wearing face masks.
“Then I started to realize there was really a memo, and a guy, Mattias Desmet [professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium], talked about it,” Clapton continued. “And it’s great. The theory of mass formation hypnosis. And I could see it then. Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere.”
JAC: That is known in the trade as “confirmation bias.”
Clapton recalled “seeing little things on YouTube which were like subliminal advertising,” he said.
His “preexisting condition”, which he claims caused him to get really sick after the jab, seems to be a bad back caused by a nerve inflammation. Well, perhaps. But to blame your taking the jab on subliminal manipulation—hypnosis, for crying out loud!—is risible.
:.
More from The Post and the video, including his collaboration on anti-vax music with Van Morrison:
The former Cream guitarist also talked about his efforts with fellow British songwriter Van Morrison to speak up on behalf of other artists against vaccine requirements.
“My career had almost gone anyway. At the point where I spoke out, it had been almost 18 months since I’d kind of been forcibly retired,” he said, as pandemic restrictions shut down live events for months.
“I joined forces with Van and I got the tip Van was standing up to the measures and I thought, ‘Why is nobody else doing this?’ … so I contacted him.”
He said Morrison, 76, complained that he wasn’t “allowed” to freely object to vaccine requirements.
“I was mystified, I seemed to be the only person that found it exciting or even appropriate. I’m cut from a cloth where if you tell me I can’t do something, I really want to know why,” the “Cocaine” singer said.
He sounds calm and rational (the British accent helps), but what’s coming out of his mouth is nonsense. Now of course he has the right to say anything he wants, including his theory of “mass hypnosis”, but we can fault Clapton for trying to persuade others to avoid a preventive that has been shown to work. As he says, “I had a tool [his music], and I could do something about that” [i.e., promulgating his crazy views].
Click on the screenshot to read the Post article, though if you watch the 18-minute video above, you don’t really need to.
I think this tweet is appropriate.
JUST TO RECAP:
ERIC CLAPTON DOESN’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT EPIDEMIOLOGY.
AND DR. FAUCI DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE 1-4-5 BLUES.
WHEN CLAPTON WRITES A NEJ PEER REVIEWED PAPER ON VACCINES, I’LL READ IT.
WHEN FAUCI PLAYS LAYLA, I’LL LISTEN.
THIS ISN’T HARD.
— Long Strange Trip (@LSTrip44) January 22, 2022
h/t: Barry
Sounds to me like Clapton is counting on all this attention to jump start his career
What a kook. Forced retirement, subliminal messaging – this is all paranoid conspiracy theory type talk. Still a great artist though.
It’s the lesson humanity never seems to get, so every time a new case of it happens we act surprised when we shouldn’t: amazing expertise and talent in one area doesn’t imply “generally smart” or good or whatever. A guitar hero is not a mythic hero. No RL hero is a mythic hero.
I’ve long wondered if he really is a ‘great’ artist. Given that so many of his fellow artists say so I acknowledge that he must be.
I even do really like some of his music. For me he was at his best by far with Cream. Tales of Brave Ulysses is a particular favorite of mine. But many years ago I invested in what was then the definitive collection of his music, . . . and was disappointed. After spending hours and hours shortly after acquiring it looking for the greatness, looking for some really good music, I tucked it away in a cabinet drawer and it has sat there untouched for the past 34 years. Anybody want it?
I agree with your assessment of Clapton and Cream. Even his Blind Faith stuff was good. I think he’s a great guitarist but don’t love his songwriting or choice of material. Basically, he lost me when he went solo. He seemed to transition from trying to impress people to taking on the whole “Clapton is God” persona.
“I’ve long wondered if he really is a ‘great’ artist.”
Artist – don’t know.
But if someone’s sound on the instrument, or in the composition, is instantly recognizable, that means they are a great musician.
Vocal/voice quality/sound doesn’t count, IMO.
For whatever reason, I’ve never liked Clapton and I consider him grossly overrated. Sure, he could play guitar, but I can’t put him in any top 10 lists. I also think his lyrics are usually simple and silly…esp. as a solo artist and extra esp. as a solo anti-vax artist.
Definitely not on my top 10 list. I just find much of his music boring. IMO he did some very good stuff early on, peaked early and then had a long mostly booorrrinnngg career.
Cream was great. Sunshine of Your Love, Layla, he’s good when he rocks or when he’s bluesy, but a lot of his slow songs (including the slow version of Layla) are kinda vapix.
Blind Faith too. Can’t Find My Way Home is amazing.
Cream and The Bluesbreakers were his best work. Blind Faith and Layla has some good stuff. After that, it is hit and miss, mostly miss.
Remember that he was just 23 and already God when Cream split.
A good, influential, and popular guitarist. Wrote a very interesting autobiography. But he is obviously not qualified to talk about health issues.
I can still enjoy his music, but would think twice, or thrice, before paying to see him live again.
Has it occurred to anyone (even Clapton, perhaps) that his reaction to the vaccine may be a byproduct of his admitted abuse of recreational chemicals earlier in his life?
My thought exactly!
I think I may have mentioned before that Clapton has a phobia about needles. Even back when he was a stone-cold junkie, he would snort smack or chase the dragon, but he wouldn’t run it into a vein.
” . . . his reaction to the vaccine may be a byproduct of his admitted abuse of recreational chemicals earlier in his life?”
Perhaps he’ll take back his admission upon realizing that he had actually somehome been hypnotized into doing so.
There’s a funny experience anyone might notice when their car, bike, or whatever needs your head to point under the hood, and “fix” things. A hose clamp here, a wire there. So you do something. Car works, you drive away.
A few days later, look in there again an >noticea number of things that were not noticed before<. The mind puzzles over it – what is going on??
Clapton is merely paying attention to specific things – embedded in the milieu – he ignored before. Anyone would do that. But the problem is that Clapton is claiming, in effect/to my analogy, that the hose clamp he changed is making the battery go dead, and inventing a Car Talk grade rationalization of a meaningless observation.
Too many years LUI (living under the influence), too many influences. The man should really shut up but I suspect the people saying he has always been a jerk are right
What I would really like to know is what Anthony Fauci, the rest of the CDC and WHO, Johns Hopkins Hospital, etc., have to say about how to play the guitar.
The tweet beat me to it. But didn’t Duane Allman play the guitar riff on Layla? The only thing I really liked by Clapton wasn’t even performed by him.
I think both Clapton and Allman have solos on Layla, the latter doing the slide part. And, to my ear, the style of each solo matches that of the attributed player.
Here’s the late, great recording engineer Tom Dowd deconstructing the guitar harmonies on “Layla”:
Thanks. That was interesting. Dowd was a funny guy.
According to Wikipedia, Allman composed the famous riff as well as playing it. Nevertheless, I have seen Clapton play it himself quite well (Knebworth) and I think it would be pretty churlish not to acknowledge that Clapton is a great musician. On the other hand, I’m fairly sure Fauci has him beat when it comes to epidemiology.
It never ceases to amaze me how much weight people are prepared to apply to the words of celebrities just because they happen to be successful in some completely unrelated field.
LOL – thanks!
He’s pretty good (IMO); but the choice of material …
Perhaps he should learn some high-quality material, like “Wap.”
Pretty cool.
If this whole physician-geneticist thing doesn’t work out, maybe he can get a gig on NPR’s “Ask Me Another.”
Not only is his “evidence” anecdotal, he thinks his anecdote is very important and that we must listen.
This is a textbook example of mass formation psychosis. Rogan was talking about it recently with James Lindsay.
Is it though? Is there a textbook that includes mfp? Are Rogan & Lindsay experts in the field?
Satire
Well played, sir. You had me.
Hehe, happens to me too. Age of Twitter
If you play the Big Pharma ad backwards, it says, “Slowhand is getting sleepy, very very sleepy …”
I wouldn’t mind hearing The Fauch take a shot at “Bell Bottom Blues.”
I’m holding out for when he, uh, “sings,” Hocus Pocus by Focus.
Bell Bottom Blues is great. 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shut_Up_%27n_Play_Yer_Guitar
“While there is a minute possibility that Clapton did indeed get sick from his injection”
Temporary adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines have been relatively common. I was sick for one day after I got my second vaccination (felt like the Flu). By the next day I was fine. I don’t think my experience was that unusual.
But Clapton is blaming a long-term illness on the infection. What point are you trying to make?
“What point are you trying to make?”
At least based on my experience, Clapton is wrong. In general, vaccines have a pretty good safety record (but not perfect). Going back more than 50 years, at least one bad batch of the Polio vaccine was made (The Cutter Incident). The much later theory that a contaminated vaccine was responsible for HIV in Africa was disproven (it was a depressingly plausible theory, it just wasn’t true).
I NEED every single one of you horrible, horrible people who mentioned the album “B***d F***h” to acknowledge that you are vile pedophiles and I will be doing EVERYTHING in my power to see that you are CANCELED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! /s
You’re undoubtedly referring to the famous cover with the naked teenage girl. I’ve seen it but my copy has the barley sheaf on it instead. Am I redeemed?