My fashion is part of who I am, and though I was not born with these clothes on, I was born this way.

I had no idea how to do that, because I was either above or below everybody. I was either towering above as Clapton the guitar virtuoso, or cringing on the floor, because if you took away my guitar and my musical career, then I was nothing.

I am the Lizard King. I can do anything!

My identity shifted when I got into recovery. That's who I am now, and it actually gives me greater pleasure to have that identity than to be a musician or anything else, because it keeps me in a manageable size. When I'm down on the ground with my disease-which I'm happy to have-it gets me in tune. It gives me a spiritual anchor. Don't ask me to explain.

All I can do is be me, whoever that is.

I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows. I'm in the bottomless pit of cultural oblivion.