Wonderful Tonight

Wonderful Tonight is Eric Clapton at his most domestic and most tender — written about his girlfriend (later wife) Pattie Boyd while she was getting ready to go out, the song is as close as Clapton ever came to straightforward domestic contentment.

The guitar playing here is the opposite of Clapton's showpieces — understated, melodic, in service of the lyric rather than independent of it. The production by Glyn Johns gives it a warmth that suits the subject perfectly.

Clapton's personal life in this period was complicated in ways the song doesn't reflect. The domesticity the song celebrates was hard-won and would not last. That knowledge doesn't diminish the song; it complicates it.