Clapton is really melodic in that way. John's newer way of phrasing is very much like Clapton.

I think John may have copied the intro to belief idea from stuff Clapton does. He does very similar intros (different licks of course) to songs like Old Love and sometimes even Layla. I mean with the keyboard chords and him doing the soloing. If you check out the DVD Clapton did for the Crossroads centre (not the Crossroads Festival) (the DVD I'm talking about is one that features Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow and Mary J Blige) he does an intro like that for Old Love.

Just for the record, I like it when John does really melodic stuff but he is not the only one who can play like that.