Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio. He always runs while of those walls,
Speaker 1: she as while just talk us at this world. Al
Speaker 1: sudo so he strikes Black and the boat. He always
Speaker 1: runs while there's walk Yes, those walls. This is such
Speaker 1: an anthem. This song is one of the most wonderful
Speaker 1: and preposterous anthems to masculinity and chauvinism I've ever heard
Speaker 1: in my life. My favorite is he knows the meaning
Speaker 1: of success, meaning his needs are more, so he gives less.
Speaker 1: He gives less exactly he don't. Black wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, he said the song doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: but it ripens, you know. He said, it's about a
Speaker 1: guy who's a big fan of himself. All I know
Speaker 1: is we got to get a guy that can sing
Speaker 1: the ship song to make everybody forget that it's not
Speaker 1: about anything, you know what I mean. Well, the thing was,
Speaker 1: in those days with the James Bond, all those songs
Speaker 1: were big songs, so they wanted a big singer that
Speaker 1: could say that had a big voice, you will breathe
Speaker 1: and a heart without regrets. Days are asking are all gone.
Speaker 1: Just fight he goes on and on and on, but
Speaker 1: he thinks for that the fight is re so he strikes.
Speaker 1: Let them my guest today is perhaps the only singer
Speaker 1: who could have made that song work, Tom Jones. Legend
Speaker 1: has it, Jones nearly passed out holding that final note
Speaker 1: in this song. Thunderball, the theme song from the fourth
Speaker 1: James Bond film. Tom jones booming baritone has led him
Speaker 1: to sell over one d million records in his nearly
Speaker 1: six decade career. Thunderball was just one of a burst
Speaker 1: of hits for Jones when he started out in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteen sixties, including It's Not Unusual, What's New, Pussycat,
Speaker 1: She's a Lady, Green Green Grass of Home, I'll Never
Speaker 1: Fall in Love Again, and Delilah. After topping the UK
Speaker 1: charts in xt Jones quickly crossed over to the US.
Speaker 1: He won the Best New Artist Grammy Award in and
Speaker 1: appeared regularly on The Ed Sullivan Show. He even hosted
Speaker 1: his own the variety show This Is Tom Jones. Along
Speaker 1: the way, Tom Jones perfected the Sexiest Man Alive look
Speaker 1: and devoted himself to playing live shows. He headlined in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas at least one week a year between nineteen
Speaker 1: and two thousand eleven. Growing up in South Wales, Jones
Speaker 1: assumed he'd work in the coal mines like his father,
Speaker 1: but at age twelve, he contracted tuberculosis. He spent the
Speaker 1: next two years convalescing, listening to American R and B music,
Speaker 1: and dreaming of a very different life. I was always
Speaker 1: interested in music. Music was always there since I was
Speaker 1: a very young child. I was always listening to the
Speaker 1: to the radio. And there's a lot of singers in
Speaker 1: my family, you see. My uncle was really good. So
Speaker 1: I would be listening to these singers growing up. And
Speaker 1: then when I had t B they said just go
Speaker 1: to bed and stay there. That's all it was in
Speaker 1: those days, was rest, and they were going to send
Speaker 1: me away. First of all, they said, you either got
Speaker 1: to go to Switzerland or Scotland, you know, somewhere where
Speaker 1: the air is is pure. But when they checked out
Speaker 1: my house, we lived on a hill in South Wales,
Speaker 1: not not near a coal mine, and so they said
Speaker 1: we'll find if you're can have your own room, you
Speaker 1: can stay home, which I was thrilled about because I
Speaker 1: didn't want to really go anywhere at that age. Describe
Speaker 1: when you decide you've got what it takes to get
Speaker 1: up on stage and just start to perform. What your
Speaker 1: early career is. Where where are you performing? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: in school first of all, and then Chapel, Presbyterian Chapel.
Speaker 1: I never I never liked being in a quiet though.
Speaker 1: I wanted to shine. You know. I was a show
Speaker 1: off as a kid. I think a lot of entertainers
Speaker 1: are like that, you know, showing off. You you'll find
Speaker 1: something that you're good at and you give it your
Speaker 1: full attention. So that's that's what I was doing. So
Speaker 1: I was it was more of listening to black gospel
Speaker 1: music on the radio and then if I was going
Speaker 1: saying the old Rugged Cross, you know, a hymn in Chapel.
Speaker 1: I heard my Helia Jackson sing it on on the
Speaker 1: radio and I thought, ship, you know, I mean I
Speaker 1: want to sing it like that. They were playing black
Speaker 1: gospel music on the radio in the South of Wales. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The BBC would play a variety of things and that
Speaker 1: was part of it. Sometimes you'd hear blues song, you know,
Speaker 1: a black voice, you know, a gospel voice especially, I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: what is you know, what is that? Why does that
Speaker 1: woman sound different? To the way they were singing it
Speaker 1: in the chapel. It was a difference in it, you know,
Speaker 1: And that caught me. Many of the great singers that
Speaker 1: we've had on the show, and we've had quite a few,
Speaker 1: Roger Daltrey, we had all these guys on here, and
Speaker 1: they all talked about the same thing, choir choruses, church
Speaker 1: related singing when they were very young. But when do
Speaker 1: you decide you're going to go professional? When do you
Speaker 1: decide you're gonna get out there and will make a
Speaker 1: stab at then? And what's your first pro gigs? Where
Speaker 1: were you? Okay? First one was in a workingman's club locally.
Speaker 1: It was on a Saturday night. I was seventeen, and
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have been in there, You've got to be
Speaker 1: it should have been eighteen. But I was in there,
Speaker 1: of course with my father and his brothers, coal miners,
Speaker 1: you know. So I couldn't wait to get in there,
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't wait to be a man. I
Speaker 1: wanted to drink pints of beer with these fellas. So
Speaker 1: I was there on a Saturday night and they booked
Speaker 1: some concert party they used to call him, and and
Speaker 1: they didn't show up. So the fellow that was running
Speaker 1: it said, you know you've got a guitar, right, I
Speaker 1: said yeah, yeah, And he said, do you want to
Speaker 1: run home and get it and sing as a few songs?
Speaker 1: I said sure. So I ran up the road, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that far away, grabbed my guitar, an acoustic guitar,
Speaker 1: ran back there, and rock and roller just kicked in. Then.
Speaker 1: You see, it was in the fifties, this is seven.
Speaker 1: So there I was doing like Elvis Presley songs, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So that was it, and they gave
Speaker 1: me a pound. They gave you a beer, one pound,
Speaker 1: one beer. Whether those days you could have a night
Speaker 1: out on a pound, so I could have like five
Speaker 1: or six points of beer and that was it. So
Speaker 1: so I thought, wow, this is great. So then I
Speaker 1: started going playing other pubs and clubs and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: When does someone find you right, Well, I was. I
Speaker 1: was in one of these workermen's clubs. I got a
Speaker 1: band together. By this time, there was a local rock
Speaker 1: band cover bands they call him. Now, how many guys
Speaker 1: were in the band. Three? There were three guitars. That
Speaker 1: was lead guitar, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar. And a druma.
Speaker 1: So that was you and four guys. Yeah. By the
Speaker 1: time I got with these fellas, they were playing a
Speaker 1: y m c A on a Friday night, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: So now a Friday was for me. I was like
Speaker 1: twenty or something like that, and a Friday night was
Speaker 1: a drinking night. You say that was? That? Was it?
Speaker 1: I was out with the fellas. I was working on
Speaker 1: construction by this time, and I'm out drinking in this pub.
Speaker 1: So I knew the bass player from this band and
Speaker 1: he came in and he said, look, I was singing
Speaker 1: asn't shown. Could you come into the y m c
Speaker 1: A and sing some tunes with us? And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, Ernon. His name was Vernon. I said, Vernon
Speaker 1: is Friday. You know what I mean? This is? This
Speaker 1: is drinking like come on, and I said, Saturday is
Speaker 1: you know I do shows on Saturday. Well, he said
Speaker 1: the singer didn't show. If you don't come, you know,
Speaker 1: we won't be able to do the show. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: they don't have any booze in a YMC. So he said,
Speaker 1: well what about if we get to create a beer
Speaker 1: and stick it behind the curtains there? Because they had
Speaker 1: a stage and everything for dancing. So I said sure.
Speaker 1: So I went able to this friend of mine and
Speaker 1: I said, look, you know, when in doubt great balls
Speaker 1: of fire, I mean, that's you know exactly. So he said,
Speaker 1: do you know create was a fire in c and
Speaker 1: they said sure. I said, well then let's do it,
Speaker 1: so boom, you know. And then when I must say,
Speaker 1: you've had on my brain exactly too much of Lords
Speaker 1: out of a man saying you broke my way good exactly,
Speaker 1: So so that was the standard you need to know
Speaker 1: that song, yes exactly. So that was it. And then
Speaker 1: I took this banton that we're already playing these y
Speaker 1: m c a s you know, for kids, and I'd
Speaker 1: already gone into these workingmen's clubs to sing to coal miners.
Speaker 1: So I said, look, there's a whole world here in
Speaker 1: South Wales in these workingmen's clubs. They've never had rock
Speaker 1: and roll music in there before. So they said, well,
Speaker 1: we don't know about I said, I've got a gig
Speaker 1: right tomorrow night. I'll take you all in there. So
Speaker 1: we get into this club as soon as we walk in.
Speaker 1: In those days, electric guitars, you know, and amplifiers and
Speaker 1: drums and all that ship. It was like, what the
Speaker 1: you know is this? And I said, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: fellas to the audience, and they said, oh, yes, we
Speaker 1: know you taught me you were fine. But what about
Speaker 1: all these other buss that you got with you. I said,
Speaker 1: just give us some give us you know these are
Speaker 1: coal miners and their girlfriends and that. So I said
Speaker 1: to the boys, I said, look, keep the sound down right,
Speaker 1: we'll do my mother's eyes will do. I believe, We'll
Speaker 1: do some balance that they understand. And then when they're
Speaker 1: not looking quit pausifier, right they We're going to clip
Speaker 1: them exactly. That's exactly what we did. And by the
Speaker 1: end of the night from pay them off, which we
Speaker 1: got first of all, which means pay them not to play, right,
Speaker 1: that's what they were showing. To pay them off, I said,
Speaker 1: just a second, you know, give us a chance. By
Speaker 1: the end of the night, the fellow that book the
Speaker 1: show said, if I called the police station and get
Speaker 1: an extension, could you play to midnight? You know, in
Speaker 1: one night now, so someone finds you at one of
Speaker 1: these places that professional find you in South Wales exactly
Speaker 1: Who was that person? His name was Gordon Mills, and
Speaker 1: he was a songwriter and he was all also in
Speaker 1: a group then called the Viscounts, which were three fellas
Speaker 1: doing three part harmonies. They had some hit records themselves.
Speaker 1: They were covering American records. But I knew him. I'd
Speaker 1: seen him on TV. He had come to visit his
Speaker 1: mother in South Wales because he was He was Welsh
Speaker 1: as well, so he came to see me in this
Speaker 1: club and he said, you should be in London. I said,
Speaker 1: I know that, you know I've been there. You've gone
Speaker 1: there for what. I went to get a record deal
Speaker 1: because they heard a tape that I did, and so
Speaker 1: I already had a record contract with Decca, but that
Speaker 1: was like three singles, you know, three strikes in here out,
Speaker 1: That's what I had. So then as Gordon Mill shows
Speaker 1: up and said I can write songs. I write songs,
Speaker 1: and he had written some hit songs for other people,
Speaker 1: so I knew that he knew what he was talking about.
Speaker 1: And what did he write for you? Then he wrote,
Speaker 1: it's not unusual. He wrote, it's not unusual. He wrote it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my god. He had written it for a girl called
Speaker 1: Sandy Shaw who had had some hit records. She had
Speaker 1: number ones like two or three number ones, and he said,
Speaker 1: could you do the demo? So I said sure. So
Speaker 1: we go into Regions Sound in Denmark Street and I
Speaker 1: did this demo demo, a demonstration record for Sandy Show.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know good, this is the fucking
Speaker 1: song that we've been looking for. It he said, he said,
Speaker 1: he said, you know what that song? I said, yes,
Speaker 1: I do. You know this is a hit song and
Speaker 1: he said yeah for Sandy Show. I said no. I said, look,
Speaker 1: if I don't get this song, I'm going back to Wales.
Speaker 1: I said, fuck this you you Oh. I knew as
Speaker 1: soon as I heard it, I thought this is a
Speaker 1: hit song. So then we went and recorded it properly,
Speaker 1: you know, with the with the brass bomp, you know
Speaker 1: like that, and then there we yeah, we're often running.
Speaker 1: So that was at the end of six. Did you
Speaker 1: run into Sandy Shore years later and she was drunk
Speaker 1: at a club and said, you Boston, What happened to
Speaker 1: Sandy Shore? No, she said, I met her and she
Speaker 1: did my TV show later on right, I had a
Speaker 1: TV show, so she came on there and she says,
Speaker 1: you could do and she said, when I heard you
Speaker 1: singing it, I said, whoever singing this song, that's his song.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to sing that like that now.
Speaker 1: So that song comes out and things change, I assume overnight, overnight,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable, so so much so he went so fast
Speaker 1: up the charts. Right, I'm in a pub. I'm doing
Speaker 1: a tour now with my band from Wales, Silla Black,
Speaker 1: who was a singer. Then she's passed on since she
Speaker 1: had a tour and I was on there. I took
Speaker 1: I took the place of a man called p J Proby.
Speaker 1: He was busting his pants all the time and they said,
Speaker 1: you keep doing that and when you're out the fucking door.
Speaker 1: So he busted his pants one store off and you
Speaker 1: keep sending a piece of cheesecake over his table. Cheesecake.
Speaker 1: It's really good, have it trying this exactly. So I
Speaker 1: was doing all that. So so there I am on
Speaker 1: on this tour and it's not unusual starts going up
Speaker 1: the chart and I didn't know. I didn't know it.
Speaker 1: It was moving that fast. So I'm in a pub
Speaker 1: in between shows with rock bands from a lot of
Speaker 1: them from Liverpool at the time. Because the Beatles, you know,
Speaker 1: like that, So I'm in this pub and all these
Speaker 1: kids are screaming outside, and me like a schmuck. I
Speaker 1: walked straight out into the crowd, thinking that they were
Speaker 1: there for somebody else, not knowing that it's not unusual
Speaker 1: of going up the chat so fast, and I walked
Speaker 1: straight into this thing. Well, they ripped the ship out
Speaker 1: of my This had one raincoat to my name, and
Speaker 1: the thing we're flying all over the place. So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is it. You know, I'm been tearing you limb
Speaker 1: from limb exactly overnight. You know, like a week before
Speaker 1: you couldn't get a place of a drink, you know.
Speaker 1: Superstar crooner Tom Jones. Another staggeringly accomplished artist who rose
Speaker 1: to fame in the sixties was Herb Albert. In addition
Speaker 1: to his virtuosic trumpet playing, he was also the A
Speaker 1: in A and M Records, the world's largest independent record label.
Speaker 1: In our conversation, Albert talked about passing on a song
Speaker 1: that became a hit for the Carpenters. As I'm marking
Speaker 1: out of Hall's door, I said, how is there a
Speaker 1: song that do you think I might be able to handle?
Speaker 1: Or song that you have talked away in the Jordan
Speaker 1: same yarn I gave bird. Two days later, he sent
Speaker 1: me close to You, which was going to be the
Speaker 1: follow up to this Guy's in Love with You. I
Speaker 1: recorded it in the studio. I'm listening to the playback
Speaker 1: and my engineer friend Larry Levine rested. So look to me,
Speaker 1: says man, you sound terrible singing this. I don't forget it.
Speaker 1: I lost my confidence. I put that thing in the
Speaker 1: drawer when I signed the Carpenters in so a year later,
Speaker 1: I gave him close to You. Here the rest of
Speaker 1: my conversation with herb Albert at Here's the Thing dot org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Tom Jones talks about how he developed
Speaker 1: his on stage sex appeal. I'm Alec Baldwin and this
Speaker 1: is Here's the thing. Tom Jones had a breakout hit
Speaker 1: with It's Not Unusual in and he was eager to
Speaker 1: get to the top of the charts again. But he
Speaker 1: couldn't have been more surprised by the song that took
Speaker 1: him there. And all of a sudden, my manager says,
Speaker 1: look you know Bert Packer acas I said, of course,
Speaker 1: I do you know how David was in houses exactly?
Speaker 1: So they have written a song for a Woody Allen film. Right,
Speaker 1: oh okay, and they want you to do the title
Speaker 1: song and it's called What's New pussy Cat? I said,
Speaker 1: oh great, okay, let me hear it. So we go
Speaker 1: to this flat in London. Bert Back, like I said,
Speaker 1: he was with Angie Dickinson then, who I was in
Speaker 1: love with. And I'm just a you know, twenty four
Speaker 1: year old fellow and I'm sitting there. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: can I hear the song? And he said sure. So.
Speaker 1: Now Bert Packer Rack can't sing, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: he admits to it himself. He can't. He's a great songwriter,
Speaker 1: but he's not a singer. So he's at the piano
Speaker 1: and he starts. Now I'm being listening to rhythm blues
Speaker 1: records like that rock and roll, fifties rock and roll.
Speaker 1: All of my sudden, Burt Back rocks on this piano,
Speaker 1: going damn day damn Dana Bam Bam damn Danda bam
Speaker 1: bah d that like Kurt Vile, and I'm thinking, what
Speaker 1: the fund has this? So he finishes it right, and
Speaker 1: I said, you're pulling my leg right, and he said,
Speaker 1: what I said, You're trying to catch me out don't you.
Speaker 1: I said, you're I am, you know, twenty four years
Speaker 1: old from Wales, don't know anything. You're playing this piece
Speaker 1: of ship and you're trying to say what do you think?
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna go it's a it's a test. So
Speaker 1: and then then you're gonna say, well, that's not the song.
Speaker 1: This is And he said that's the song and I said,
Speaker 1: so my managers there now you know this is Bert
Speaker 1: back Iraq. You know it's behind Burt background looking at
Speaker 1: going to stop stop. Yeah, I said, look, I said
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't say this. And he said, what
Speaker 1: of course you can't. I said, no, I can't. I said,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense to me, you know. So
Speaker 1: fair play for Birt, you know. He said, I'll demo it.
Speaker 1: I'll make a demonstration record of it so you can
Speaker 1: live with it for at least a week and see
Speaker 1: what do you think. So my manager is like, you know,
Speaker 1: Golden Mills, he's gone white and the music publishers there,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's like, oh ship, you know, Birt
Speaker 1: back around? Wouldy Allen film? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And they're schmuck from Wales. They say they can't do it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so I lived with the song, and until
Speaker 1: I did it, I wasn't sure of it, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, when did you get it? Like when I
Speaker 1: sang it. As soon as I got in the studio,
Speaker 1: he was there, which was strange. He had four four
Speaker 1: upright pianos in a square and he's banging away on
Speaker 1: him right. He's got this full August for there, and
Speaker 1: he goes, okay, you need to think of this as
Speaker 1: like the Midnight Hour. Right you're Wilson Pickett. You do
Speaker 1: a midnight Hour, sing the ship out of it. And
Speaker 1: I said, all right, so what you hear is we
Speaker 1: see pussy can't. You're delicious and if come true, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll soon be kiss kissing you act inside the song.
Speaker 1: There's a performance inside the song. Super masculine. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I told you, you look like you're the captain
Speaker 1: of the rugby team. You look like you chopped down
Speaker 1: the whole forest with an ax when you're a little boy.
Speaker 1: You're so super masculine in your performance persona. And it
Speaker 1: was so delightful to have you played through these playful words.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these songs are very playful,
Speaker 1: not just like like Green Green, Grass of Home is
Speaker 1: a straight ahead, just killer ballad. I mean, there's one
Speaker 1: of the great ballads of all time, and you sing
Speaker 1: the ship out of it. But it's a very straight ahead, sentimental,
Speaker 1: old school kind of ballad, whereas some of these other
Speaker 1: songs you sang like Pussycats the best example and Thunderball,
Speaker 1: it's very playful. There's a kind of a there's a
Speaker 1: performance you have to give. Yes, yes, you've got to
Speaker 1: treat it like you mean it. And even though it's
Speaker 1: like a novelty song, really you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: try and make this novel take it seriously, take it seriously,
Speaker 1: and and I honestly, I mean you hit the name
Speaker 1: right on the head when you say acting. You know,
Speaker 1: I think singers actors. It's just that we put it
Speaker 1: into into into song, but it's still acting. That's the
Speaker 1: way I feel. You've got to get in the song
Speaker 1: and live it. You make it your own or you
Speaker 1: put your own self in that character. And that's what
Speaker 1: I always what I always say about. You know, they say, oh,
Speaker 1: you covered this record. No, No, I didn't cover it.
Speaker 1: I gave you my interpretation of it, just like an
Speaker 1: actor does with when he or she does a rule,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be different, different than what somebody else would
Speaker 1: do it now, when you know, during the sixties and
Speaker 1: the seventies and beyond, everything just seems much more deliberate
Speaker 1: in terms of packaging a star. You know, their albums,
Speaker 1: and they're remember album artwork on the album covers and
Speaker 1: the liner no oats, and it was such a presentation
Speaker 1: of things that were so much deeper and richer than
Speaker 1: they seemed to be now. And and one thing is,
Speaker 1: of course, is uh costuming. I mean, you're a guy
Speaker 1: who comes out there and you've got the jump suits
Speaker 1: and everything. You're obviously very fit guy. Whose idea was
Speaker 1: it to make you into the sex symbol in terms
Speaker 1: of your styling? You're an unrepentant sex symbol in your styling.
Speaker 1: Whose idea was that? Mine? Yours? Literally? Literally literally it
Speaker 1: came from necessity. Really, I would start off in a suit, yes, right,
Speaker 1: because I was told to you know what, I had
Speaker 1: my TV show. They said, you gotta put a suit on,
Speaker 1: you gotta put a tuxedo on, you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: put a boat tie on. I said, this is not
Speaker 1: natural for me. You know, I don't like that, you know,
Speaker 1: so anyway, I would get rid of it as soon
Speaker 1: as possible. So to tell you would come off, the
Speaker 1: jacket would come off, the shoot would be open, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Because I was sweating my bullocks
Speaker 1: on an actual fact, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: I had to strip down. I mean I did a
Speaker 1: rehearsal once at a club in London and the same
Speaker 1: thing happened. In rehearsal. I said, funk the court. You know,
Speaker 1: I gotta get to get rid of his jacket, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm here and my shirt was open, and Gordon
Speaker 1: Mills said to me, that's the look. I said, what
Speaker 1: he said, as you are now without the jacket, with
Speaker 1: the shirt open, you know, you look like you're gonna
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna conquer the bucket world. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: that's on the ass. You're gonna take a bite out
Speaker 1: of everything exactly. But anyway, so that's what it was.
Speaker 1: It was from necessity. So I mean, when when when
Speaker 1: you're finding your look, when you're finding your thing to perform,
Speaker 1: it's all you. You're calling the shots, yeah, more or less,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I had to tone it down
Speaker 1: on Network TV. Yeah, Well, the first time I came
Speaker 1: up against it was when I came to doing that
Speaker 1: Sullivan Show in sixty five. But it's not unusual. And
Speaker 1: they said, we've got to see you do it, you know,
Speaker 1: let's watch you in in the rehearsal room. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: play the record, you know you you know, we need
Speaker 1: to hear you say it. You're going to do exactly.
Speaker 1: So I started doing my thing, you know, and they said, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: You know, they said, you can do that. You can't
Speaker 1: do that on television on Sunday night, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And I said why They said, because you can't.
Speaker 1: And I thought shit, I thought America was like, you know,
Speaker 1: wide open British television. I was doing it, and I thought,
Speaker 1: what ship? If I could do it in England, how
Speaker 1: come you know, in New York on the at Sullivan. God.
Speaker 1: But they were telling me the same thing as they
Speaker 1: told Elvis Presley in fifty six when he went on
Speaker 1: there nine years before me. They were giving me the
Speaker 1: same bullshit. They said, if you do that, we'll cut
Speaker 1: the close ups. Did you tone it down or you didn't? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a bit. I had to because my manager said, you know,
Speaker 1: and the people around me and said, if you don't,
Speaker 1: they won't let you on there. You know, they'll cut
Speaker 1: you out of the show. So I thought, well, that's
Speaker 1: no good. You know, I gotta I want to get
Speaker 1: on the Ad Sullivan Show because Elvis Presley, you know,
Speaker 1: that was his big break really at the beginning of
Speaker 1: his career, and the same thing for the Beatles. As
Speaker 1: far as America was concerned, that was it. So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: you know, behave yourself to a certain extent and hopefully
Speaker 1: get invited back. Yes, and he and thank god, he
Speaker 1: liked me so much. I did like five ads all
Speaker 1: of the shows, you know, within that year. It was tremendous. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now describe for me if you would. I remember back
Speaker 1: in I was going to do a film that had
Speaker 1: a kind of a Vegas theme to it. So a
Speaker 1: group of us in the cast went to Vegas for
Speaker 1: a long weekend. And I wasn't much of a Vegas person,
Speaker 1: but we go and he gets tickets for us to
Speaker 1: go see Sinatra at Valleys and Sinatra comes out and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not exaggery. It was beyond belief how fantastic
Speaker 1: he was. You couldn't even describe. And his one of
Speaker 1: his assistance comes out. We looked at it and said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's just we can believe. She said, yeah.
Speaker 1: He laid off the booze, he laid off the cigarettes.
Speaker 1: He ate really well. He really trained and got himself
Speaker 1: ready to come back. He really wanted to pamper his
Speaker 1: voice and come and really do this, and he sounded
Speaker 1: like it was. He sounded so magical. What's that like
Speaker 1: for you if you had to because you you had polyps? Correct? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had polyps because I was doing two shows a
Speaker 1: night in Las Vegas for a month straight. Stranger voice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was over singing, and Frank Snazra God bless him,
Speaker 1: said to me, you're giving too much. You don't have
Speaker 1: to hit everything as hard as you are, you know.
Speaker 1: He said, you've got to be able to light in shade.
Speaker 1: You know, you won't last if you do this twice
Speaker 1: a night, you're gonna be in trouble. And me, macho,
Speaker 1: you know from Waal, like I could do this, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? But he was right. After a while,
Speaker 1: he took its toll and then I had to see
Speaker 1: a man in in in l A and he said,
Speaker 1: you've got these nodules on your vocal cords because you're
Speaker 1: overdoing it. You've got to learn to pull back doing
Speaker 1: too shows a night exactly. So I had to learn that.
Speaker 1: That's one thing I had to learn. Light and shade,
Speaker 1: not to hammer, you know, all the time. And then
Speaker 1: and then the when you would record, when you went
Speaker 1: into the recording studio, was that something you love because
Speaker 1: many artists I talked to they say that's their favorite
Speaker 1: thing is to get in there and just and to
Speaker 1: lay it down exactly the way they wanted to make
Speaker 1: it perfect. Did you love recording? Yeah? Yeah, Well it's
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, all roads lead to the stage.
Speaker 1: That's what I feel. Everything I do is it all
Speaker 1: leads to live performances. You're never happier than when you're
Speaker 1: up there exactly. That's when I breathe, That's when I
Speaker 1: come alive. So all the other things you know that
Speaker 1: I do, like TV and promotion on records and you know,
Speaker 1: everything that goes with it, it's all leads to when
Speaker 1: I get up there and do it live to the
Speaker 1: people you know, and that's when it shows. That's when
Speaker 1: you think, ship, I thought this song would work better
Speaker 1: than this or I wasn't prepared for this song to
Speaker 1: work as well. You don't really know when you're in
Speaker 1: the recording studio. There's a difference to when you're on stage,
Speaker 1: when you've got to perform these songs. There's a differences
Speaker 1: no feedback from the audience in the studio. Well, exactly,
Speaker 1: so you're enjoy if I do plays, I enjoy that
Speaker 1: feeling them out or I can feel them out there,
Speaker 1: you know. Right as far as I'm concerned, that's where
Speaker 1: I live. He's on the stage. Singer Tom Jones follow
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
Speaker 1: leave us a review when we return. Tom Jones talks
Speaker 1: about meeting Elvis Presley and playing with Jerry Lee Lewis.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. Tom
Speaker 1: Jones was married to his wife Linda for nearly sixty
Speaker 1: years until her death in two thousand sixteen. They fell
Speaker 1: in love at age twelve and had their son Mark
Speaker 1: when Linda was just sixteen and Tom was seventeen. Even
Speaker 1: from those early days singing in the local pubs, Tom
Speaker 1: Jones had a family to support. You know. Some people say, well,
Speaker 1: did it get in the way. No, it gave me
Speaker 1: more determination. When I was a kid, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a man desperately, you know. I saw my cousins
Speaker 1: going to the pubs with my father and his brothers.
Speaker 1: You know, I desperately wanted to get in that world.
Speaker 1: You know, So getting married was one of those things.
Speaker 1: It was the rite of passage. Exactly, look at this
Speaker 1: and I can I can do this, you know, I
Speaker 1: can provide. I can provide for my wife and son.
Speaker 1: And then my wife was always a fan of my
Speaker 1: you know, we were in school. She loved the ways
Speaker 1: and she knew what I wanted to do. Now, whether
Speaker 1: I succeed or not, it was anybody's guests. But when
Speaker 1: Gordon Mills came to see us, you know, see me
Speaker 1: in this club, she knew she'd seen him on television
Speaker 1: and she said, wow, you know they would be great
Speaker 1: if Gordon Mills, if you could do that, that would
Speaker 1: be wonderful, wouldn't it. I said, yeah. So it was
Speaker 1: always like a family of fair you know. I had
Speaker 1: the people in Wales all loved the way I sang,
Speaker 1: all my family and I was like, yes, Tommy. You know,
Speaker 1: Tommy can do it. Go on, tom You know. It
Speaker 1: was all that and my wife was the same way,
Speaker 1: you see. So she gave me strength, you know, she
Speaker 1: reassured me that I could do it. So you were together.
Speaker 1: You were married for how long? Fifty nine years? Fifty
Speaker 1: nine years? Yes, we were married for fifty nine years.
Speaker 1: We were together before that, but that t B thing
Speaker 1: got in the way. I used to look at it
Speaker 1: through the from the window of my room. You know,
Speaker 1: she was becoming a woman and I wasn't out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just give her to this TV thing and I'll
Speaker 1: be right over exactly. But let me ask you this,
Speaker 1: which is, you're married for fifty years, but according to
Speaker 1: other things I've read about you, that didn't prevent you
Speaker 1: from becoming, shall we say, a good will ambassador around
Speaker 1: the world, if you will, quite right to your quits,
Speaker 1: you had many fans, you had many female fans, and
Speaker 1: you felt the need to let the relationship with you
Speaker 1: go to another, let them into your life a little bit.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yes? Well, I tell you my wife.
Speaker 1: You know, I made a statement once which she didn't
Speaker 1: particularly like. I said, my wife keeps me single. She
Speaker 1: prevents me from doing something stupid, you know, like marrying
Speaker 1: some young girl, you know, and then putting her in
Speaker 1: for a new model, you know, as time goes on,
Speaker 1: as a lot of people do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: But my wife, you see, I always had this wonderful excuse,
Speaker 1: always upfront, saying, excuse me, whatever we do is going
Speaker 1: to be fun of games. My wife is number one.
Speaker 1: She is there in this house, you know, as long
Speaker 1: as she don't find out. You know, she didn't give
Speaker 1: me the right of passage. She didn't say, oh I'm
Speaker 1: gotta you know, put the put the blinders on. Oh no,
Speaker 1: she said, just don't you dare embarrass me. And I said,
Speaker 1: I will not ever, I won't do that, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was true to my word. I never did.
Speaker 1: She was always number one in my life, and she
Speaker 1: gave me strength. She was. It wasn't until she passed away,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, that I realized I'm on
Speaker 1: my own now, I know. I know. I always remember
Speaker 1: that wonderful quote that I'm told was from Sophia loren
Speaker 1: And they asked her, what would you think if you
Speaker 1: found out your husband was with another woman? And she said,
Speaker 1: if my husband slept with a thousand women, that would
Speaker 1: hurt me, she was. But if my husband slept with
Speaker 1: the same woman a thousand times, then I'd really be concerned.
Speaker 1: She said, You know, that says in love. If he
Speaker 1: was in love, if everything else was just uh sport,
Speaker 1: if you will, you know exactly, that's that's you've hit
Speaker 1: the name right on the head. You know. My wife,
Speaker 1: God bless her, she would get out of out a
Speaker 1: joint if if I had seen somebody, you know, and
Speaker 1: she knew that there was more to it than a game. Now,
Speaker 1: you see, for all of us when we're young, especially
Speaker 1: if we come from a background. And my dad was
Speaker 1: a public school teacher, he had no money. He had
Speaker 1: six kids. Remember when I was leaving home, the mantra
Speaker 1: was I gotta make money. Everything was a problem about money,
Speaker 1: and all the friction, oh my household between my parents
Speaker 1: was about the lack of money. Money. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, you're out there and you're not even conscious,
Speaker 1: you mean, you just work like an animal, performing and
Speaker 1: performing and performing, and then you don't realize. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, it was probably early thirties and the mid
Speaker 1: thirties I realized how lonely I was I was lonely,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering if that was a part of
Speaker 1: a few as well, which is you're on the road.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it's about your libido on one level,
Speaker 1: but on the other level, was it about being lonely
Speaker 1: because you were traveling? U um? Now that question has
Speaker 1: never been asked before. I've got to try and analyze it.
Speaker 1: You remember being lonely during that period when you were
Speaker 1: taken off. No, to be honest with you, I never was,
Speaker 1: so I can't. You know, it doesn't apply. I was
Speaker 1: like a kid in a candy I was just gonna say.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say you were a you were
Speaker 1: the proverbial kid in a candy story. And it's still
Speaker 1: I mean, and I never got still I still I've
Speaker 1: just an eight year old version of what I was before.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's a strange thing with time. You know,
Speaker 1: when time goes on, things happened to you and you think,
Speaker 1: I wonder what I'm going to be like if I
Speaker 1: get to be old. You know, what would I be like?
Speaker 1: And things do. Nature has a way of making you
Speaker 1: accept certain things. You know with your life, you can't
Speaker 1: be what you were. You can't. If you think you can,
Speaker 1: you're a fool, you know, to yourself, You've got to
Speaker 1: be what you are. And I've always tried to be
Speaker 1: as honest as possible, you know, and and and that's
Speaker 1: a fact on my life. And and I still feel
Speaker 1: the same way now. You know, I'm an eight year
Speaker 1: old man. Now. My wife has passed away five years ago.
Speaker 1: I took a hell of a time to get over
Speaker 1: that because I realized I was on my own, which
Speaker 1: I had never thought of before. And then when that's
Speaker 1: taken away from you, you think, Jesus Christ. I've never
Speaker 1: experienced this before in my life, and so that took
Speaker 1: an adjustment. But my wife God blessed as she said, look,
Speaker 1: you know, go back to London, go back to to
Speaker 1: to Britain. Wanted that what you was at the dream
Speaker 1: for you you missed him. Yes, my wife, you see,
Speaker 1: was always homesick. Even though we had wonderful houses in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. She always had it in her mind that
Speaker 1: we would eventually come home. Well, I noticed that for me.
Speaker 1: I turned sixty three this year. You're the same age
Speaker 1: as my son. It's true. Well you were impossibly young,
Speaker 1: but got remarried and my wife and I had six
Speaker 1: kids in seven years. Now, wait a minute, could I
Speaker 1: just say this, did you did you come here to
Speaker 1: confess or just a brag? A little of both. I
Speaker 1: must say a little both. But but one thing I realized.
Speaker 1: One thing I realized as is I'm getting older, is
Speaker 1: that I used to be very political, and the older
Speaker 1: I get, the less so I am. Because I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a time when you're younger when you
Speaker 1: want to go out in all affairs, your career, your advocacy,
Speaker 1: whatever causes you want to support, and you go out
Speaker 1: there and you bite it as hard as you can,
Speaker 1: and you get in there and fight, and you're in
Speaker 1: the scrum there with people. And then as I turned
Speaker 1: sixty and have these kids, I thought, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I'm done with that for the time being. I
Speaker 1: only have the energy to raise my family and go
Speaker 1: to work and all these answers. I mean, at the
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, that's as you said
Speaker 1: to begin with. You know, when you when you're coming
Speaker 1: from a working class back around or a middle class
Speaker 1: pack around, you want to go out and make money.
Speaker 1: You want to get out and provide for your family.
Speaker 1: If you and that's your first thing. And look now
Speaker 1: that you're as old as you are and you've got
Speaker 1: a family, you you're you're basically doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: Right as my friends said when I turned sixty, we
Speaker 1: still have plenty of time, but none to waste. And
Speaker 1: I love that phrase. You know, when you're young, you
Speaker 1: think you've got all the time in the world, and
Speaker 1: you've got you're gonna do a lot, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: do this and do that. You know, I was going
Speaker 1: to make movies. I was gonna you know, I had
Speaker 1: all these great ideas about what I was going to do,
Speaker 1: and then before you know where you are, time is
Speaker 1: sort of gone. So you've gotta you know, you you
Speaker 1: come to realize, well, now my grandkids. You know that
Speaker 1: my grandchildren are here, my son and my daughter and
Speaker 1: all my grandkids. That's where I am. Now, what would
Speaker 1: you say, especially since you turned fifty, fifty, sixty, sixty five,
Speaker 1: as you were getting older, what's been your health regiment?
Speaker 1: Because you sound like you're forty years old. You're so energetic,
Speaker 1: you're so alert, you're so healthy. Are you a big
Speaker 1: are you as a nutrition as an exercise? What's your thing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: exercise I used to run a lot, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: then I got be the trouble on my knees, so
Speaker 1: I don't, but i'd still. I got on a cross trainer,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm on a bike. I do to get
Speaker 1: the heart rate up. You've got to. You've got a faith. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got to do cardio. You've got to. And of
Speaker 1: course you've got to be careful with the demon drink,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I used to love to, you know,
Speaker 1: have a few years ago. I know, if I want
Speaker 1: to keep living, I've got to listen to what the
Speaker 1: doctors say, you know, and be careful. And if you
Speaker 1: do that, as long as you've got good health, which
Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough to have, you know, there's never
Speaker 1: everything really wrong with me. Is that you've got to
Speaker 1: make the most of it. And as you say yourself,
Speaker 1: time is getting, you know, more valuable. I feel now
Speaker 1: when you were doing the TV show, I would imagine
Speaker 1: you did five seasons of that show, correct, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: when you did that, where did you shoot that? L
Speaker 1: A We did most of it in London, just outside
Speaker 1: north of London, and then some of it from Los
Speaker 1: Angeles as well. And when you would do that show
Speaker 1: or any performance as you've done. Who are people there
Speaker 1: for you that when you were up there on stage
Speaker 1: with them you really to s thought this is great
Speaker 1: somebody you loved performing with. Well, first of all, the
Speaker 1: one that jumps to mind is Jerry Lee Lewis, because
Speaker 1: I bought a whole lot of shaking going on when
Speaker 1: I was seventeen, you know, and I heard this record
Speaker 1: and I thought, fuck me, who is that? You know,
Speaker 1: because Elvis? You know, everybody said Elvis is a freak.
Speaker 1: And I said, it can't be one. There can't just
Speaker 1: be one guy, you know, some white guy that's been
Speaker 1: listening to black singers in the South, and oh, yes
Speaker 1: it is. It's a freak. And then I hear a
Speaker 1: whole lot of shaking Jerry Lee Lewis, and I said,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, you know this is the same thing. But
Speaker 1: he's playing piano. You know, he's not standing up there
Speaker 1: with a guitar. He's actually pounding the ship out of
Speaker 1: this piano with another another flavor. So when I got
Speaker 1: Jerry Lee on my show and I'm looking across the
Speaker 1: the piano at him doing the songs with him, you know,
Speaker 1: like I went back to when I was seventeen, you
Speaker 1: know when I first heard a whole lot of shaking,
Speaker 1: And here I am same thing with little Richard, you know,
Speaker 1: the same thing. I was a big Little Richard fan,
Speaker 1: had all his records, and that he is and I'm
Speaker 1: doing good. Call him as molly with him, you know,
Speaker 1: and send me some loving So that was my dream.
Speaker 1: I was living my dream, you know, like that. And
Speaker 1: the same when I met Elvis Presley. I used to
Speaker 1: sing with him in his suite in Las Vegas, but
Speaker 1: Parker wouldn't let him record with anybody, so we never
Speaker 1: got to record together. But I did sing with him,
Speaker 1: and I thought, this is fantastic. And then Sonatra, I
Speaker 1: never got to sing with him, but I knew him.
Speaker 1: I met him, you know, trunk with him. Oh you
Speaker 1: were very close to was it Mary Wilson? Yeah, Mary
Speaker 1: Wilson of the Supremes. And did you did you record
Speaker 1: with her? Uh? No? I almost signed with Moretown. They
Speaker 1: wanted me to sign. I would have been the only
Speaker 1: white artist on the label at that time, but but
Speaker 1: it didn't work out. But we we we out close.
Speaker 1: But she met my wife afterwards. You know. Everything was
Speaker 1: was cool. She was a good person and she's passed
Speaker 1: away since, but she was really really lovely, lovely girl.
Speaker 1: Nick Tashes wrote this very famous biography of Dean Martin,
Speaker 1: and uh, there's a moment in the book when Elvis
Speaker 1: is surging and Martin plays Elvis's song. Then he takes
Speaker 1: it off the turntable, puts on a record of his
Speaker 1: and plays a song that he takes that off the
Speaker 1: turntable and he puts on Bing Crosby and plays a song,
Speaker 1: and he says, what's the difference being to me to Elvis?
Speaker 1: And then when he said crooning is crooning singing and singing?
Speaker 1: Do you feel that way? Do you feel that you're
Speaker 1: part of a line of great male vocalists? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and and and as Dean Martin said, I think Ben
Speaker 1: Crosby was maybe the first pop singer. You know that
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, you know, my mother and
Speaker 1: father listened to him. Ben Crosby was iconic. I can
Speaker 1: never get tired of going on YouTube and watching those
Speaker 1: shows of them together being with Frank and High Society.
Speaker 1: They were in the movie together. They were in the
Speaker 1: movie together, and then Frank would sing with Elvis. But
Speaker 1: then there's that wonderful thing on YouTube where they switched
Speaker 1: songs and Elvis sings Witchcraft Yes, and Frank sings what's
Speaker 1: the song? Frank sings love Me Tender, love me Tell,
Speaker 1: love me, love me Sweet? Yeah, never let me Go.
Speaker 1: He's got the Frank rhythm to it. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's so funny. That video is so funny.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, which is that you've sang
Speaker 1: some very colorful songs and very kind of kitchy songs
Speaker 1: like pussy Cat and so forth, but you've also sang
Speaker 1: songs that are just beautiful pop like she's a lady
Speaker 1: who wrote that song? She's a lady? Uh, paul Anka,
Speaker 1: But paul Anka, paul Anca, And this is the truth.
Speaker 1: Paul Anka was doing my TV show, right, and he
Speaker 1: said to me, I've just written this song and you
Speaker 1: would sing the ship out of it. It's called My Way,
Speaker 1: right And I said really and he said yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And he had done a demo on it, so I listened.
Speaker 1: I said, Wow, that sounds great that song. He said,
Speaker 1: the only problem is my publisher has sent it to
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra. Now where Frank wants to do it? Frank
Speaker 1: does it? You know, you know, but where Frank Sonatra
Speaker 1: once he told me, because when I listened to the song,
Speaker 1: I thought, have I lived long enough yet? You know,
Speaker 1: because I was thirty years old at the time. You
Speaker 1: need to have a few more rings on the tree
Speaker 1: there to sing that song. Now I could do it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could, well, let's hear it. But but I want
Speaker 1: to ask you this there. This makes me a little
Speaker 1: emotional because there's the Tom Jones we know, handsome is
Speaker 1: the day is long powerful. But there's a boy in
Speaker 1: a house in the south of Wales and he wants
Speaker 1: to be a coal miner, he wants to be a man.
Speaker 1: He's got tuberculosis. He's gonna go on to become one
Speaker 1: of the most popular and the most famous male vocalists
Speaker 1: in history. But when what's what's the song that Tom
Speaker 1: Jones sings? That's the song for that boy? Is there
Speaker 1: a song that really touches you? What's the ballad you
Speaker 1: sang where sometimes you almost thought you might crack? It's
Speaker 1: so about you. There's one that I did, a Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan song that was called What good Am I? What
Speaker 1: good am I? If I don't do this, you know,
Speaker 1: if I let this happen and don't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: That song is hard to sing for me now because
Speaker 1: the last verses, what good am I? If I say
Speaker 1: foolish things and I laugh in the face of what
Speaker 1: sorrow brings? And I just turned my back while you
Speaker 1: silently die, What good am I? And I think? Fuck?
Speaker 1: You know? Did I could I have done? What? Could
Speaker 1: I have done something? But I couldn't? But that song
Speaker 1: is hard. What advice does the great Tom Jones have
Speaker 1: for his successors, these the young Harry Styles and all
Speaker 1: these performers. Just hold onto what you've got. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got to You've got to do it your own way.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to stick to your guns. Take advice,
Speaker 1: you know, listen and take advice from people, or I
Speaker 1: would never have recorded. Wasn't your pussy cat? You know?
Speaker 1: I mean if I'd just gone on instinct. So you've
Speaker 1: got to listen, and you've got to take advice. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it comes down to yourself,
Speaker 1: and that's got to be you. You've got to be
Speaker 1: able to look in the mirror and say, I've done
Speaker 1: the best I can. I'm doing what I love to do.
Speaker 1: If you can't talk to yourself like that, how can
Speaker 1: you talk to anybody else. Well, let me just say
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much. I'm glad you sound great,
Speaker 1: you look fantastic. Oh, thank you very much. I thank
Speaker 1: you all the best. The once and forever sexiest man alive,
Speaker 1: Tom Jones. He had a hit with his cover of
Speaker 1: this song, Green Green Grass of Home. INTI, I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, has brought to you by my heart radio.
Speaker 1: A smiling sweetly, It's good to touch the green green
Speaker 1: grass of home. The old house is still standing, though
Speaker 1: the paint is cracked and dry. And that that old
Speaker 1: old tree that I used to play all down the lane,
Speaker 1: when my sweet Mary care of gold and lips like cherries.
Speaker 1: It's good to touch the green green grass of home.
Speaker 1: Then I awake and look around me, gray walls that
Speaker 1: surround me, and I realized, Yes,