A really amazing reaction 👏! I see 👁👁 you have reacted to Tom Jones before: I'll Never Fall In Love Again. Delilah was released as the lead single from Tom Jones' 1968 album: Delilah. It was written by Les Reed and Barry Mason. It was produced by Peter Sullivan. It earned Les Reed and Barry Mason the 1968 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. The song reached #15 on the Hot 100. It reached #1 in Switzerland, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, France, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa and the UK Melody Maker chart. This live performance is from The Ed Sullivan Show on April 21, 1968. When Tom Jones performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1968 the network TV censors (unsuccessfully) attempted to insist that the line: "At break of day when the man drove away", be changed to: "At break of day I was still 'cross the way", as the original version implied he had spent the night with Delilah. Tom Jones later described the proposed change as "such bullsh!t". The song tells the story of a man who passes his girlfriend's window and sees her inside making love to another man. He waits outside all night, and then confronts her in the morning, only to have her laugh in his face. He stabs her to death, and then waits for the police to come break down the door and arrest him. The lyrics unfold from the killer's point of view, and are filled with his, often contradictory, emotions. He speaks of Delilah in possessive terms, but also refers to himself as her "slave." He asks his dead girlfriend to "forgive" him, but still clearly sees himself as having been wronged by her. In a two-year court case in the High Court of Justice, 1983 -M- No.1566, Barry Mason's ex-wife Sylvan Whittingham claimed she had written half the lyrics of "Delilah" and several other songs. The legal battle was settled out of court in 1986. Songfacts verified her claims when she showed us court records from her divorce settlement that prove her authorship. She has also been vetted by major newspapers that acknowledge her as a co-writer, and Tom Jones mentions her as a lyricist on the track in his autobiography. In 2001, Barry Mason told the UK newspaper The Sun that he based the song (minus the bloodshed) on a girl he met on vacation in Blackpool, England when he was 15. They had a summer fling, but when it came time for her to return home to Llandudno in North Wales, she told Barry Mason that she had a boyfriend, and it was over between them. Barry Mason is quoted in the paper as saying: "I was shattered. I never shook it off and I became sick with jealousy and a whole lot of pain. She had dark hair, brooding eyes and she was really feisty. If there's a typical Welsh girl, she was the one". Barry Mason said that her name was Delia, which was impossible to integrate into a song ("Why, why, why Delia" didn't work). A decade later, working with Les Reed, he got the idea to change her name to Delilah, and they wrote the famous song. "I just got more and more worked up with each line", he said. "I put my heart and soul into that song - and that's how 'Delilah' was born". The Sun embarked on a search for the mystery woman who inspired the song, asking readers to call in if they knew Delia from Llandudno. They called off the search when they heard from Sylvan Mason, who explained that she co-wrote the song and that there was no Delia. According to Sylvan Mason, Les Reed had already written the chorus: "Why, why, why Delilah", and the lyric is based on the 1954 musical Carmen Jones. "Les Reed's idea was to write a modern-day Samson and Delilah song but we got carried away and it ended up like Carmen Jones", she told WalesOnline, adding that the line: "I was lost like a slave that no man could free", is a reference to Samson being tied up. Sylvan Mason says they composed the song in two hours, and it just flowed out. "It became about the guy's lover", she said. "She had been with someone else all night. He was jealous, and had probably been drinking - and then he stabbed her". Asked to respond, Barry Mason told The Sun, "I have no comment on the opinions of my former wife". Explaining how this song came together, Sylvan Mason told Songfacts: "In 1968, as was normally the practice, my then husband Barry Mason, and musician Les Reed would get together, usually at Les' house in Woking round the beautiful polished wood, grand piano, or sometimes in a music room at Frances Day and Hunter, just round the corner from Denmark Street. FD&H were the overall publishers of Donna Music, Les' first publishing company. They would thrash out a few concepts for a song. Les would bring, or work on, a melody, and a title would usually be agreed on. Sometimes, Barry would take my titles to Les. One of them 'Don't Linger With Your Finger on the Trigger', Les recorded himself, and appeared on Beat Club in Bremen to sing it. Their initial efforts would be put down on our portable tape recorder and Barry would bring this, either home to me, or to an office where we could work on it together. We would both have a clipboard to write down our ideas, and I would type the completed lyrics on my typewriter at home. Sometimes, we would be still completing lyrics and would take our clipboards to an upstairs room at Les' Wessex studios as the arrangement for the demo was being put down and recorded. In the case of 'Delilah', which arrived, on a sunny morning, via the usual tape recorder, the rough tape was played to me in an office in Chappell Music, 19 St George Street, where Barry's publishing company (Patricia Music) was based. On the first floor, there was a small room with a piano and a desk on the left hand side of the building (as you looked from the street). Access was via Managing Director Stuart Reid's Reception area. The melody had already been put down in entirety by Les Reed, who had also had the idea for the theme of the song, and a chorus that had two lines of 'Iy Yi Yi, Delilah'. Les had suggested that the song be based on the story of a modern Samson and Delilah, and Barry and I set to work. Finding a way to put 'Lulling Samson to sleep in her lap, Delilah alerted the Philistine rulers who waited in the shadows to capture him. They sheared Samson's hair and, in his newly weakened state, bound him, gouged out his eyes, and forced him to grind grain in the prison at Gaza' into a modern context, was not easy, though I must admit, later on Leonard Cohen did manage to do an amazing job with 'Hallelujah' in 1984. It was not an easy task for him either. He apparently 'wrote around 80 draft verses for 'Hallelujah,' with one writing session at the Royalton Hotel in New York where he was reduced to sitting on the floor in his underwear, banging his head on the floor'. As the song progressed, after struggling a bit, we decided to switch over to making it about the storyline in the 1954 film of Carmen Jones which I had seen as a young girl and which was based on the 1943 stage production of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II, which was inspired by an adaptation of the 1845 Prosper Mérimée novella Carmen, and in which Harry Belafonte, engulfed and inflamed with passion, jealousy and rage, strangles the adulteress Carmen (Dorothy Dandridge) as she mocks him. Cradling her dead body, he sings, 'String Me High on a Tree, so that soon I will be, with my darling, my baby, my Carmen' as he shuts her eyes, and the Military Police enter the room through the door, and take him away. The only line that remained from the original attempt at the Bible story was 'But I was lost like a Slave that no man can free' which still seemed to fit the new story angle. It was one of those lyrics that just flowed after the original idea or theme has taken hold. The same thing happened with 'Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)' for which I wrote most of the lyrics with Tony Macaulay in late 1969. Both were completed with no re-writes in under two hours". ****CONTINUE BELOW****
Miscellaneous Notes 🗃: Snooker World Champion Mark Williams uses "Delilah" as his walk-on music. Singer PJ Proby, who had a few minor hits in the '60s- "Hold Me," "I Can't Make It Alone", was the first to record this song, but he did it under protest and refused to release it, so it went to Tom Jones instead. In PJ Proby's original version, the chorus is: "Eye Yi Yi Delilah" - Tom Jones changed it to "My My My Delilah". PJ Proby's rendition surfaced in 2008 when it was included on the album compilation: The Best Of The EMI Years. Shortly after the song's release: "Delilah", became an unofficial anthem in Welsh rugby. As early as 1971, Max Boyce's own hit song: Hymns And Arias, referenced "Delilah"'s popularity alongside more traditional Welsh hymns: "We sang Cwm Rhondda and Delilah; damn, they sounded both the same". The song's popularity saw it become part of official matchday performances at Wales matches, especially those at the old National Stadium. On April 17, 1999, Tom Jones performed "Delilah" as part of the pre-match build-up to Wales' victory over England at Wembley Stadium in the 1999 Five Nations Championship. In 2014, Dafydd Iwan, Folk singer and former president of Plaid Cymru (the Party of Wales), called for Welsh rugby supporters to stop singing this at games because it trivializes violence against women. Tom Jones responded in a BBC interview: "It's not a political statement. This woman is unfaithful to him and [the narrator] just loses it... It's something that happens in life." He added: "If it's going to be taken literally, I think it takes the fun out of it". In 2015, the Welsh Rugby Union removed the song from its half-time entertainment and playlist for international matches. In February 2023, the Welsh Rugby Union banned choirs employed for entertainment from singing the song during their pre-match performances and throughout games. In July 2023, Tom Jones performed the song as part of three concerts held at Cardiff Castle. In the first show, Tom Jones addressed the crowd with an apparent reproval of the WRUs stance: "Who was the man who didn’t want us to sing Delilah? You can’t stop us singing Delilah. He stopped the choir from singing but he didn’t stop the crowd from singing it. And we will keep singing it too!". This was greeted with cheers from the crowd before Jones' rendition of the song. The song featured in the 1990 film 📽: Edward Scissorhands. The song has been covered by some artists including 📻: The Platters, Connie Francis, Jimmy Fontana, The Ventures, Shelia, Horace Andy, Hugo Strasser, Junior Magli, Alan Caddy, Ray Adams, Andy Dimes and Michel La Rose, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Foster & Allen, Ray Conniff, Chet Atkins w/ The Boston Pops Orchestra And Arthur Fiedler, The Barron Knights ft Elton John, Sandro, Jerry Lee Lewis, Peter Alexander, Sam Sorono, Frank Valentino, Ricky King and more. Lyrics 📝: I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind She was my woman As she deceived me I watched and went out of my mind My, my, my Delilah Why, why, why, Delilah? I could see, that girl was no good for me But I was lost like a slave that no man could free At break of day when that man drove away I was waiting I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door She stood there laughing I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more My, my, my Delilah Why, why, why, Delilah? So before they come to break down the door Forgive me, Delilah, I just could not take any more She stood there laughing I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more My, my, my Delilah Why, why, why, Delilah? So before they come to break down the door Forgive me, Delilah, I just could not take any more Forgive me, Delilah, I just could not take any more Fall in love again Tom Jones Info 📰: Tom Jones was born on June 7, 1940 in Treforest, Wales. He is a singer, songwriter and actor. His singing career began with a string of top 10 hits in the 1960s and he has since toured regularly, with appearances in Las Vegas from 1967 to 2011. His voice has been described by AllMusic as a "full-throated, robust baritone". His early musical influences include: Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Solomon Burke, Jackie Wilson, Brook Benton and Jerry Lee Lewis. He began singing at an early age; he would regularly sing at family gatherings, weddings, and in his school choir. He did not like school or sports, but gained confidence through his singing talent. At the age of 12, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Many years later, he said, "I spent two years in bed recovering. It was the worst time of my life". During this time, he could do little else but listen to music and draw. Tom Jones performing range has included Pop, R&B, Show Tunes, Country, Dance, Soul, and Gospel. In 2008, the New York Times called him a "musical shapeshifter who could slide from Soulful rasp to Pop croon, with a voice as husky as it was pretty". He has sold over 100 million records, with 36 Top 40 hits in the UK and 19 in the US, including: "It's Not Unusual", "What's New Pussycat?", the theme song for the James Bond film: Thunderball (1965), "Green, Green Grass Of Home", "Delilah", "She's A Lady", "Sex Bomb", and a cover of Prince's song: "Kiss". Tom Jones has also occasionally dabbled in acting, first making his acting debut in the lead role of the television film: Pleasure Cove (1979). In 1970, he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Television Series Musical or Comedy nomination for hosting the television series: This Is Tom Jones. In 2012, he played his first dramatic acting role in an episode of Playhouse Presents. In 1967, Tom Jones performed in Las Vegas for the first time, at The Flamingo. His performances and style of dress became part of his stage act, and increasingly featured his open, half-unbuttoned shirts and tight trousers. He soon chose to record less and focus on club performances. Tom Jones played in Las Vegas at least one week each year until 2011. He received a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1966, an MTV Video Music Award in 1989, and two Brit Awards: Best British Male in 2000 and Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2003. He received an OBE in 1998 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006 for services to music. He experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 2010s due to his role as a coach on the talent show The Voice UK (2012-2015, 2017-present). Tom Jones still performs live on stage in 2024. Honors & Awards (Partial) 🏅 : 1966: Grammy Award for Best New Artist 1966: Grammy Award nomination for Contemporary Rock & Roll Male Vocal Performance for "What's New Pussycat?" 1966: Grammy Award nomination for Contemporary Rock & Roll Single for "It's Not Unusual" 1970: Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Television Series Musical or Comedy for This Is Tom Jones 1970: Ivor Novello Award for International Artist of the Year[152] 1989: MTV Video Music Award - Breakthrough Video for "Kiss" 1989: Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 1999: appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) 2006: Knighthood for "services to music" 2017: Bambi Award in the category "legend" Tom Jones TV & Film Credits (Partial) 🎬: What's New Pussycat? (1965) Promise Her Anything (1965) Thunderball (1965) Frankie & Bruce (1966) This Is Tom Jones (1970) The Special London Bridge Special (1972) On Happiness Island (1974) Pleasure Cove (1979) Tom Jones Live In Las Vegas (1980) Tom Jones Now! (1983-84) Fantasy Island (1984) The Grand Knockout Tournament (1987) The Disney Christmas Special (1989) The Ghosts of Oxford Street (1991) The Simpsons (1992) The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (1993) Silk n' Sabotage (1994) The Jerky Boys: The Movie (1995) Mars Attacks! (1996) Agnes Browne (1999) A&E Biography (2000) The Emperor's New Groove (2000) Duck Dodgers (2004) Imagine (2010) Playhouse Presents King Of The Teds (2012) The Voice UK (2012-15, 2017- Present) Under Milk Wood (2014) Superheroes Unite for BBC Children in Need (2014) Mammals (2022) Documentary Now! (2022) Tom Jones Albums (Select Discography) 📀: Along Came Jones (1965) What's New Pussycat? (1965) A-tom-ic Jones (1966) From The Heart (1966) Green, Green Grass Of Home (1967) Delilah (1968) Help Yourself (1968) This Is Tom Jones (1969) Tom (1970) I Who Have Nothing (1970) She's A Lady (1971) Tom Jones Close Up (1972) The Body And Soul of Tom Jones (1973) Somethin' 'Bout You Baby I Like (1974) Memories Don't Leave Like People Do (1975) Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow (1977) What A Night (1977) Rescue Me (1979) The Country Side Of Tom Jones (1981) Country (1982) Don't Let Our Dreams Die Young (1983) Love Is On The Radio (1984) Tender Loving Care (1985) At This Moment (1989) Carrying A Torch (1991) The Lead And How To Swing It (1994) Reload (1999) Mr. Jones (2002) Tom Jones & Jools Holland w/ Jools Holland (2004) 24 Hours (2008) Praise & Blame (2010) Spirit In The Room (2012) Long Lost Suitcase (2015) Tom Jones The Complete Decca Studio Albums Collection (2020) Surrounded By Time (2021) ****CONTINUE BELOW****
Some more good songs by Tom Jones 🎶: It's Not Unusual, Memphis Tennessee, I Need Your Loving, Watcha Gonna Do, Skye Boat Song, Worried Man, Once Upon A Time, Autumn Leaves, It's Just A Matter Of Time, Spanish Harlem, If You Need Me, When The World Was Beautiful, Chills And Fever, Spanish Harlem, Some Other Guy, With These Hands, Lady Put The Light Out, Come To Me, What's New Pussycat, My Way, Bama Lama Bama Loo, To Make A Big Man Cry, A Little You, Stop Breaking My Heart, Thunderball, Daughter Of Darkness, Not Responsible, Begin The Beguine, A Taste Of Honey, If Ever I Would Leave You, Detroit City, Funny Familiar Forgotten Feelings, Sixteen Tons, He'll Have To Go, I'm Coming Home, That Lucky Old Sun, Land Of A 1000 Dances, Wake Up Crying, It's A Mans Word, You Keep Me Hangin' On, Sleeping, Weeping Annaleah, Just Out Of Reach, Once There Was A Time, It'll Be Me, Help Yourself, A Minute Of Your Time, My Girl Maria, Looking Out Of My Window, Can't Stop Loving You, With One Exception, Love Me Tonight, Fly Me To The Moon, Wichita Lineman, Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay, What The World Needs Now Is Love, Hey Jude, That Wonderful Sound, Daughter Of Darkness, Lodi, Without Love (There Is Nothing), I Can't Turn Loose, I Who Have Nothing, Try A Little Tenderness, She's A Lady, Golden Days, Puppet Man, Sexbomb, Do What You Gotta Do, In Dreams, You're My World, Till, What A Party, Let There Be Love, The Young New Mexican Puppeteer, Witch Queen Of New Orleans, Tired Of Being Alone, If, Letter To Lucille, I (Who Have Nothing), Ain't No Sunshine When's She Gone, If Loving You Is Wrong, Today I Started Loving You Again, Not Responsible, Lean On Me, Pledging My Love, Right Place Wrong Time, Rainin' In My Heart, I Got Your Number, Only A Fool Breaks His Own Heart, Why Can't I Cry, Memories Don't Leave Like People Do, Lusty Lady, No Guarantee, A Boy From Nowhere, Kiss, Move Closer, Carrying A Torch For You, Gimmer Shelter, If I Only Knew, Something For Your Head, A Girl Like You, Darlin', You Can Leave Your Hat On, Burning Down The House, Tom Jones International, Mama Told Me Not To Come, Promise Her Anything, Sometimes We Cry, Motherless Child, Black Betty, The Letter, Younger Days, To Love Somebody, I've Got A Heart, Little By Little, Won't You Give Him (One More Chance), This And That, Bama Lama Bama Loo, Some Other Guy, Endlessly, With These Hands, Untrue Unfaithful, To Wait For Love, And I Tell The Sea, The Rose, Do You Take This Man?, Resurrection Shuffle, True Love Comes Only Once In A Lifetime, Key To My Heart, These Things You Don't Forget, Move Closer, Dr Love, I'll Never Let You Go, No One Gave Me Love, My Mother's Eyes, Promise Her Anything, Couldn't Say Goodbye, A Little You, Stoned In Love, The Young New Mexican Puppeteer, In A Woman's Eyes, More, Face Of A Loser, Where Do You Belong, That Old Black Magic, If Ever I Would Leave You, Georgia On My Mind, Something 'Bout You Baby I Like, A Minute Of Your Time, Any Day Now, Some Day (You'll Want Me), My Prayer, Kansas City, Make This Heart Of Mine Smile Again, (Barry) Islands In The Stream, Lodi, Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow, My Elusive Dreams, La La La (Just Having You Here), I Was Born To Be Me, Laura, One Day Soon, Papa, Lingering On, When I Fall In Love, See Saw, Take Me, Green Green Grass Of Home, Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms), You Came A Long Way From St Louis and Little Lonely One. Fun Fact 🕵: On June 4, 2012, Tom Jones performed the song: "Delilah", for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert.
