The Green, Green Grass of Home Quiz

Answer: No

Thomas Jones Woodward was born in Wales on 7 June 1940. Jones was his mother's maiden name. His full name is Sir Thomas Jones Woodward OBE after he received an Order of the British Empire in 1999 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.

Answer: It's Not Unusual

In 1963, Jones was the lead singer in a rock and roll band called Tommy Scott and the Senators. The group played dance halls in South Wales and recorded demos but had no recording success. Gordon Mills, a London agent saw Jones and his band play. He took him, but not the group, to London, changed his name to Tom Jones (There was a popular UK film called 'Tom Jones' at the time) to find recording success.

It took time but eventually Mills got Jones a contract with Decca in 1964 and his first single, 'Chills and Fever', did not chart.

His second single 'It's Not Unusual' became a number one UK hit, mainly due to the promotion of the song by an offshore pirate radio station.

Answer: Porter Wagoner

Claude "Curly" Putman, Jr. was an Alabama song writer based in Nashville when he wrote 'The Green, Green Grass of Home'. Johnny Darrell, an American country singer recorded it first but it did not chart. Porter Wagoner recorded it in 1965 where it went to number four on the US Country Chart. Tom Jones found out about it from Jerry Lee Lewis who had recorded it on an album (only) called 'Country Songs For City Folks'.

It was Jones who made it a worldwide hit.

Answer: Cherries

The first two verses:
'The old home town looks the same
As I step down from the train
And there to meet me is my Mama and Papa

Down the road I look and there runs Mary
Hair of gold and lips like cherries
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home'

One of the reasons Jones was attracted to the song was that the first two verses reminded of him returning from London on the train to his home at Pontypridd, South Wales.
This single sold 1.205 million copies, the first Decca record to do so. (Decca signed the Rolling Stones in 1962).

Answer: He was dreaming. He's actually on Death Row.

'Then I awake and look around me
At four gray walls that surround me
And I realize, yes, I was only dreaming

For there's a guard and there's a sad old padre
Arm and arm we'll walk at daybreak
Again I'll touch the green, green grass of home'

Curley Putnam wrote the song in about two hours soon after moving to Nashville as a songwriter. He said he was inspired by the crime scene in "The Asphalt Jungle' (1950) starring Marilyn Monroe. At that stage he was poor and searching for "anything commercial" to write. He later admitted it was the most profitable two hours' work in his life,

Answer: He will be buried beneath the green grass of his home

'Yes, they'll all come to see me
In the shade of that old oak tree
As they lay me 'neath the green, green grass of home'

Perhaps the reason the song was so popular (besides Jones' actual rendition of the song), is the twist. Starting out as a conventional love story, the story quickly developed into a tragedy with the 'green, green grass of home become a bitter irony as the protagonist's final resting place.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed a bill passed by the state legislature in 2013 to make Maryland the eighteenth state to abolish capital punishment. Governor Martin stated into an interview shortly afterward that it was the irony in this song that, in part, influenced his decision to make this legislative change.

Answer: The Beatles

A mark of a good song or artist is the number of times the song is covered. While Jones did not write or record the first version, indeed his version wasn't even the first hit of the song, it was a mark of the man that he turned a fairly standard country song into a signature song. Several acts that re-recorded it were big: Charley Pride (1966), Dean Martin, Roger Miller (both 1967), Johnny Cash, (1968), Joan Baez (1969) and Elvis Presley (1975). The Beatles did not cover any of Jones' songs but in 1968, Paul McCartney offered Jones a song as long as he would make it his next single.

At the time Jones was in the middle of releasing 'Without Love' (A hit on both sides of the Atlantic), so he turned down the song. The song title? 'The Long and Winding Road'.

Answer: 1966

'The Green, Green Grass of Home' was released by Jones in November 1966 and it stayed at number one in the UK for seven weeks including the Christmas week of 1966. The song was a worldwide hit for Jones reaching number one in other countries such as Australia, Ireland and Norway (number two in New Zealand). It only reached number eleven on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Answer: Thunderball

'Thunderball' (1965) was the fourth James Bond film, and already the opening credits were a feature of the movie. While Shirley Bassey sang the opening theme in the previous movie 'Goldfinger' (1964), it was a credit to Jones that he was given the task, given this was very early in his career.

It even preceded 'The Green, Green Grass of Home'. When in the studio, recording the song, he reputedly fainted from holding the sustained last note as long as he did. (In the parody of this song by Weird Al Yankovic singing the theme tune to 'Spy Hard' (1996), itself a spoof of Bond movies, Yankovic's head explodes as holds the last note).

Answer: No

This was Jones' biggest selling album to date. The one re-worked song off the album was Jones' own composition, 'Looking Out My Window" (1968). The original song was 'Sexbomb' (with Mousse T.) which was released as one of five singles released off the album in 1999-2000.

The duets were with high profile performers such as Justin Timberlake ('Are You Gonna Go My Way?'), The Cardigans, ('Burning Down the House') and Natalie Imbruglia ('Never Tear Us Apart'). The album went to number one on three occasions in the UK but it was never released in the US, as the the duets were arguably with performers not well known in the US.

Another attempt to make a similar project with artists better known in the US never eventuated. This perhaps summed up Jones' career: A mega-star in the UK, the Commonwealth countries and Europe but he never quite made it in the US.