A while back I posted ‘What is a Muse?’ on this blog. That was like asking ‘What are the northern lights?’ before you’ve seen the full display, or ‘What is heartburn?’ until you’ve felt it up close and personal. It’s easy enough to define in words, but until you’ve seen a muse epitomized in the flesh you can’t really get it.
There are groupies and then there are groupies. They may pretend to be cute little paparazzi just out for the photos, but they’re groupies. And Pattie Boyd… Pattie Boyd was much more than that. If a guy didn’t fall head over heels in love with Pattie Boyd, was he really a guy? I mean really! Labrador puppies are cute, but Pattie Boyd? My gawd!
The Beatle Boys fell in love with Pattie Boyd — maybe not for the first time, but Big time! George Harrison married her on their way up. Her musibilities inspired Harrison to write the songs “I Need You“, “If I Needed Someone“, “Something” and “For You Blue“. She was ‘something’ and she was indeed ‘needed’.
But that road turned left and Pattie married Harrison’s friend Eric Clapton for whom she inspired the songs “Layla“, “Bell Bottom Blues” and “Wonderful Tonight“.
Ultimately Pattie was out-mused by Lory Del Santo, so that road turned left in divorce and ultimately Patty married again.
Plebeians like you and I are supposed to assume that the highflyers, whether musers or musees, ultimately waste away into an unhappiness that shows in every line of their overdosed faces. But old farmers’ reliable wives look worse than Pattie Boyd. Does 79 year old Pattie Boyd look like a rueful hussy? No! Look at that face again; that is not a druggie or a retired farmer’s or brick mason’s disillusioned wife. That is Pattie Boyd, muse of the stars, for whom songs have been written, standing bolder than any husband claiming to be Ozymandias. “A life well-lived,” I’ll bet she would say. Look at the twinkle in those eyes. That’s Pattie Boyd.
Thanks for the story Fred.