The greatest lyric of all time, according to Tom Jones
A perfect lyric is one that will stay with you in life, through thick and thin. For every music fan, a Rolodex of these are permanently ingrained in the mind, even for Tom Jones.
Songwriting is not a gift that the Welsh singer was born with at his disposal. However, strangely, this has worked to his advantage; Jones has to think deeply about every lyric that leaves his mouth when he takes on somebody else’s creation and makes it his own.
If he just read lyrics from a page without giving it much thought, then his work would be lacking in the emotion that comes naturally to those who write their own songs. Jones had to dig deep to connect with the lines in front of him, even if it meant taking them in a new direction. His supreme talent also lies in his ability to reinterpret the words of others and inject bundles of new meaning into them, which makes the fact that he doesn’t write his own songs trivial.
Over the years, he has taken on compositions from esteemed songwriting greats like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, but for him, Jerry Lee Lewis is responsible for the single best lyric of all time.
Lewis is also somebody Jones had the opportunity to admire up close and personal. After breaking America in the 1960s, Jones suddenly had the world at his fingertips, and every week, he performed alongside a musician whom he greatly admired on television. His guests varied from contemporary stars who were firmly on the rise to those who inspired him to kickstart his musical career, ranging from Janis Joplin to Jerry Lee Lewis.
His love affair with Lewis dates back further than their first dalliance on his television show. Jones was in attendance for a performance by Lewis in Cardiff some years prior, which proved to be a pivotal moment in his life. As it was a night that had lasted long in his memory, Jones made a concerted effort to book the American singer for his programme.
It was ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’ more than a decade earlier, released by Lewis in 1957, that first alerted Jones to Lewis’ seismic talent. “I’d been a fan of Jerry Lee’s ever since I heard that song,” he once said about ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’.
Jones continued: “Elvis had come out with Heartbreak Hotel, which was the first major hit, and everybody was going, ‘Wow! He’s a freak of nature, a white guy singing like that.’ So when Whole Lotta Shakin’ came out that was it. I realise it must be a Southern thing – white people growing up with black people, and it was all rubbing off, you know what I mean?”
Although ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’ is a track with considerable significance to Jones, it’s another track from Lewis’ back catalogue containing his favourite lyric. He told Shortlist: “My favourite lyric would be ‘You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain’ from ‘Great Balls of Fire’ by the killer Jerry Lee Lewis.”
“I played shows with him – and I had him on my TV show, there’s a great clip on YouTube – we did a duet of a medley of Jerry Lee’s hits – you can check it out, it’s fantastic,” Jones added.
Furthermore, Jones names ‘Great Balls of Fire’ as the song he wants to be played at his funeral during another conversation with NME. “It’s always been a favourite of mine,” he explained. “If someone wants me to sing something, I’ve always said: ‘If in doubt, do ‘Great Balls Of Fire’. But at my funeral, I’d have to play the original 1957 version released on Sun Records.”
Similarly to Jones, Lewis wasn’t a songwriter. ‘Great Balls of Fire’ was written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer, but it was Lewis who made that lyric that brought it to life. That same line could have failed to strike a chord with Jones if it had been sung by anybody else, yet Lewis made it a lyric that has lived with him for a lifetime. It’s not the most poetic lyric of all time, but for Jones, it’s unbeatable.
