Saturday, July 17, 2010

Tom must have had a reprieve too

We borrowed Tom Jones' Greatest Hits from Daughter and each time I've listened to it I've been troubled. I finally got round to googling the lyrics of the Green, Green Grass of Home and I'm right: he has left out a verse, a crucial verse. He's turned it from a tragedy into a sweetly nice song.

The missing verse:
Then I awake and look around me,
At the four gray walls that surround me,
And I realize that I was only dreaming.
For there's a guard, and there's a sad old padre,
Arm in arm, we'll walk at daybreak.
Again, I'll touch the green, green grass of home.

You see? A significant change from the original. I wonder why.

Now I really must stop finding excuses for not scrubbing the kitchen floor ...

3 comments:

sally in norfolk said...

oh no... now i must go and order this cd from amazon :-) but i can blame you :-)

Dragonstar said...

I never realised that! Well, now I'm really surprised. Probably I've always been distracted at the crucial point.

Liz Hinds said...

That's okay, sally, I can shoulder it!

Really, dragonstar? Apparently Johnny Cash sings it too.