Name: Ed Sheeran, king of angsty love songs, absolutely crushes cover of Eric Clapton's 'Layla'
Uploaded: 2018-01-01T10:52:08+00:00
Description: Ed Sheeran sang Eric Clapton's iconic song "Layla" on Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny on New Year's Eve.

Ed Sheeran, king of angsty love songs, absolutely crushes cover of Eric Clapton's 'Layla'

So. Angsty.

There's no song on earth that better captures the agony of unrequited love than Eric Clapton's "Layla".

And, Ed Sheeran—king of angsty songs about love—is the only person on earth equipped to cover it.

The 1971 song was written about Clapton's then-unrequited love for his friend's wife, Pattie Boyd. Oh, and his friend just so happened to be George Harrison, lead guitarist of The Beatles. TL;DR Clapton later married Boyd.

Revellers ringing in the New Year in the UK were treated to a performance of Ed singing his heart out to "Layla" on Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny. And, he absolutely nailed this rendition.

Nice work, Ed.

Topics Music

Rachel Thompson

Features Editor

Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.

A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.

Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.