Tom the Tiger
It’s not all punk rock and hardcore.
Tom Jones loomed large in my childhood. My mother loved his music. She had every 45s of his on Parrot. Englebert Humperdinck’s Quando, Quando, Quando was on the same label but he was a schlockmeister compared to Tom Jones. The real deal, with a voice so soulful you can’t believe it’s coming from the son of a Welsh miner, listen to Chills & Fever and you’ll know instantly why Tom the Tiger made the girls wet.
It’s Not Unusual is Tom’s first international hit. A certified gold record. It was written for Sandie Shaw of (There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me fame, who turned it down. The thing that always hit me about these records was the production. Even on my mother’s shitty stereo these records sounded good. The brass is tasteful. The guitar might be played by Jimmy Page during one of his hundreds of pre-Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin sessions. The whole thing moves along. And you can sing to it. My mother liked to put it on and dance around the living room. Her boyfriend Justin would sit on the couch and watch her. They’d be into their third Screwdrivers, the gallon bottle of Majorska vodka stashed in the freezer. Four nights out of seven her and Justin emptied that bottle.
Green, Green Grass of Home was something Tom first sang on a TV show. The response was so huge they had to go record a single, which went to number 1 in several countries. Written by Claude “Curly” Putman Jr. and first recorded by Johnny Darrell, Tom first heard the Jerry Lee Lewis version. Listen for that twist ending. Poor bastard.
Justin was one of the biggest fucking blowhards you could ever imagine meeting. He was Italian. His father was a doctor. He was a mason. Bricklayer. He’d come in filthy, from the jobsite. He’d sink into a corner of the green and gold velvet cushions and smoke Kents one after another. My mother smoked Kools. The thing about Justin was his voice. His high nasal pitch would cut right through you. He’d say, “Joan, you don’t know what the FUCK you’re talkin’ about!” and my mother would yell back, “FUCK YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT IF YOU DON”T LIKE IT!”
What’s New Pussycat? would clang away in the background. Total oompah, the kind of thing you sing in a pub in Wales, with all the girls doing the, “Whoa, whoa...”
Thunderball comes from a James Bond film of the same name. It might be the best Bond film, period. This song used to scare me when I was little. Those blaring John Barry trumpets, the percussive piano, the strings. And the lyrics. “His days of asking are all gone...” What the HELL? Tom sings the shit out of it, anyway. Listen to that last note. How many men can do that? Convincingly? I tried singing it at Elks karaoke one night and nearly burst a blood vessel.
My mother wore out several vinyl copies of I’m Never Gonna Fall In Love, a true masterpiece. From the opening bass figure, the piano, the violins. Especially the chorus with the background singers. And the stereo mix is extreme. The piano and guitar is all on the left channel. The violins and voices on the right. Tom is right up the middle. He’s also drenched in an incredible reverb. I wish I knew who was playing the piano.
“I gave my heart so easily
I cast aside my pride
but when you fell for someone else baby
I broke up all inside”
Listen for the catch in Tom’s voice after “And it looks like...” Jesus. After that the song trots into double-time, a nice shuffle. That last note – again, the hairs on the back of your neck will stick up. Maybe it’s just me and how my mother took to that song after my father walked out. She used that song like morphine. She would close her eyes and sway back and forth. Drunk. Before long, Justin would cart her off to the bedroom.
I’d sit in my room and turn up the Led Zeppelin 8-track. Even with headphones on, you’d hear them, yelling, screaming.
“JOAN, YOU DON”T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” my mother’d reply.
Forgive Me, Delilah. I just couldn’t take any more. A big number in the pubs. My mother played the shit out of this one, too.
Just Help Yourself: Women threw panties at Tom over that one. I used to watch his TV show. My mother and I, in her room, she propped up in the bed, me seated on the floor, at the foot of the bed, watching the one and only TV. Tom would come out in a crushed dark purple velvet tuxedo with a light purple ruffle shirt, big-ass dark purple bow-tie, his hair black and wavy, perfect beads of perspiration building on his upper lip. To see him Without Love was a damn moving experience. He really believed it. What he sang. Even if it was silly. Like the best of them. Like Sinatra.
Tom Jones was Elvis Presley’s favorite singer. Elvis covered Tom’s songs.
For me, it’s She’s A Lady that kicks the most ass. Is it a misogynist masterwork. It opens with a snare slam, then the cowbell. And that mean opening riff. It’s not exactly PC, though. ”She always knows her place.” Just listen to the guitar. Jimmy Page again. I’d stake my life on it. And the horns! It’s some bastard son of rock and roll.
I (Who Have Nothing) is an English language version of Uno die Tanti (“One of Many). First recorded in English with lyrics by Jerry Leiber, Ben E. King put it out in 1963 (his 2001 re-recording made into The Sopranos). Picture Elvis the first time he hears this.
Now picture my mother if she ever knew I met and interviewed Tom Jones. She was gone before it happened.
