What’s That Lyric? The Real Stories of Brit Hits

24/09/08

The most surprising song stories often get buried following success, so it was with the old Maria Mckee hit originally titled "Show Me Devon", written as a jingle for the Devon Tourist Marketing board in the early eighties. It had bummed around for years on late night regional TV and was heard by Don Simpson in late '87 on one of his frequent short holiday's there whilst in the throes of Cardiac arrest. He thought he'd heard "Show Me Heaven" (as always, attributable to his enormous ego) and from his hospital bed in Dawlish it was rewritten as he heard it for Days Of Thunder.

Years later in 1995 the true inspiration for Clapton's heartfelt "Tears in Heaven" was wrongly attributed (even by the writer) to his son Conor's tragic 49 story tumble, for whilst convalescing in Cornwall he was writing his annual jingle for the Cornwall Tourist Marketing Board (where his family had holidayed as a child), which ran that year with the competitive theme of showing up it's neighbour with the lyric "cos I know I don't belong here in Devon". With a simple twist a la Don Simpson, creating the myth of one of his most deeply personal songs was a no-brainer, as was Conor, after the fall. (this last comment will probably shortly be removed)