The purpose of the Danny Boy film was to tell the history of the song, and why it was able to touch so many people. We also wanted to have various musicians give us their interpretation of the song, and tell us what it meant to them. We filmed a cross section of artists; everyone from Sinead O’Connor to Marianne Faithful to Shane McGowan gave us their own unique version of the song. One of the last people we filmed was Eric Clapton who had expressed a desire to be involved in the film. I was very surprised to discover that when we turned up to film that he had decided to play an instrumental version of the song. In this clip from the film he explains why he decided to do the instrumental version. Eric was so pleased with the version that he recorded that it was subsequently released as a bonus track on one of his CD singles.
