Tom Jones Songs: The Definitive Guide to a Six-Decade Career

Last Updated: 31 October 2026

Tom Jones songs have soundtracked six decades of British pop, from the swaggering 1960s chart-toppers that made a Welsh coal miner’s son a global star to the stripped-back albums of his eighties that earned him a record-breaking UK number one. Whether you know him from “It’s Not Unusual”, “Delilah” or “Sex Bomb”, the catalogue is far deeper than the greatest-hits singalongs suggest, and it keeps growing.

What are the best Tom Jones songs? Tom Jones songs at their best include “It’s Not Unusual” (UK number one, 1965), “Green, Green Grass of Home” (UK number one, 1966), “Delilah” (UK number two, 1968), “She’s a Lady” (US number two, 1971), “Kiss” with the Art of Noise (UK number five, 1988) and “Sex Bomb” with Mousse T. (UK number three, 2000), spanning pop, country, soul and dance across a career of more than 60 years.

What Are Tom Jones Songs, Exactly?

The simplest definition is this: Tom Jones songs are the recorded catalogue of Sir Tom Jones, born Thomas John Woodward on 7 June 1940 in Treforest, near Pontypridd in South Wales, the son of a coal miner. His voice — a full-throated, powerful baritone — has carried him through almost every form of popular music, from 1960s pop and show tunes to country, soul, gospel, dance and blues, without ever losing the swagger that made him famous.

The scale of that catalogue is remarkable. Jones has sold more than 100 million records, scored 36 Top 40 hits in the United Kingdom and 19 in the United States, and collected three UK number one singles and four chart-topping albums. He won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1966, two Brit Awards, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006 for services to music. Few singers can claim a hit in every decade from the 1960s to the 2020s, but the story of Tom Jones songs is exactly that story.

What holds the catalogue together is not a single sound but a single instrument: that voice. Producers have dressed it in orchestras, country arrangements, disco beats and stark acoustic blues, and it has suited all of them. That is why a playlist of Tom Jones songs can jump from a 1965 pop explosion to a 2021 meditation on mortality without ever sounding like two different singers.

The 1960s Breakthrough: It’s Not Unusual and the First Hits

Every guide to Tom Jones songs starts in the same place: early 1965. Jones’s first single for Decca, “Chills and Fever”, released in late 1964, had failed to chart. His second, “It’s Not Unusual”, changed everything. Written by Les Reed and Gordon Mills, the song had first been offered to Sandie Shaw, who declined it and recommended that Jones release it himself. It was a brilliant call: the record reached number one in the UK and number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, and it remains his signature song.

The year 1965 kept the momentum going. Mills secured Jones two major film themes: “What’s New Pussycat?”, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the film of the same name, became a Top Ten hit, and “Thunderball”, the theme for the James Bond film, followed in December 1965. Within months of his breakthrough, Jones was not just a chart singer but a screen voice as well, and the early Tom Jones songs established a template — big choruses, bigger vocals, and total confidence — that he has never really abandoned.

The industry noticed fast. Jones won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1966, confirming that the Welsh newcomer was no one-hit wonder. But by the middle of 1966 his popularity had begun to slip slightly, and Mills reshaped his image into something more mature: the tuxedoed crooner. It was a calculated reinvention, and it produced the biggest hit of his career so far.

Before all of that, Jones had been singing in South Wales clubs with his band Tommy Scott and the Senators, and it was his manager Gordon Mills who renamed him Tom Jones and secured the Decca deal. The club apprenticeship mattered: it gave the early Tom Jones songs their lived-in confidence, the sound of a singer who had already learned how to hold a room long before the charts ever noticed him.

Green, Green Grass of Home and the Crooner Years

If “It’s Not Unusual” made Tom Jones a star, “Green, Green Grass of Home” made him an institution. The country song, written by Claude “Curly” Putman Jr. and first recorded by Johnny Darrell in 1965, was taken to number one in the UK by Jones in December 1966, where it stayed for seven weeks, including over Christmas. It also spent seven weeks at number one in Ireland and reached number 11 in the United States.

The song showed a different side of Tom Jones songs: restraint. Where the early hits swaggered, “Green, Green Grass of Home” told a story — a homecoming that turns out to be a dream — and Jones sang it straight, letting the narrative do the work. It became one of his most enduring recordings, and it proved that his audience would follow him beyond pure pop, into country and storytelling material.

The late 1960s kept the hits coming. “Delilah” arrived in early 1968 and reached number two in the UK in March of that year, with a US peak of number 15, while the late-1960s ballad “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” also reached number two in the UK. These are the songs that filled Las Vegas showrooms: Jones became a headline act in the city from 1967, and for much of the next four decades the Vegas stage was his second home. The crooner era of Tom Jones songs was polished, dramatic and hugely popular, and it cemented his reputation as one of the great live vocalists of his generation.

Delilah, She’s a Lady and the Las Vegas Era

No discussion of Tom Jones songs can avoid “Delilah”, and for good reason. Recorded in December 1967 and released in early 1968, with lyrics by Barry Mason and music by Les Reed, the song is a murder ballad told with extraordinary vocal force, and it earned Reed and Mason the 1968 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. It reached number two in the UK and became one of the most passionately sung songs in his live set, with audiences joining in on every chorus for decades.

The song’s later history is part of its story too. The Welsh Rugby Union regularly played “Delilah” before international matches at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, but in early 2023 it said the song would no longer be played before games, because of its lyrics about a woman being killed by her jealous lover. Jones himself has defended the song as a piece of storytelling in the tradition of the murder ballad. Whatever your view, the episode shows how deeply Tom Jones songs are woven into Welsh public life — few other singers have a hit that doubles as a stadium anthem and a national debate.

The early 1970s brought another peak. “She’s a Lady”, written by Paul Anka and released at the beginning of 1971, became Jones’s biggest hit in the United States, reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100. It is a masterclass in controlled power: Anka’s strutting lyric matched to a vocal that never shouts when a growl will do. Alongside “Till”, which reached number two in the UK the same year, it confirmed that the second act of Tom Jones songs was every bit as strong as the first.

Reinvention: Kiss, Reload and Sex Bomb

By the late 1980s, Jones was in danger of becoming a nostalgia act. Then came one of the smartest reinventions in pop history. In 1988 he sang Prince’s “Kiss” with the electronic dance outfit the Art of Noise, after they contacted him having seen him perform it on television. The single reached number five on the UK Singles Chart and the American Top 40, and it introduced him to a younger audience who had never bought a Tom Jones record before.

The reinvention reached its peak with Reload, released on 16 September 1999. The album, his 34th studio record, was built around duets with younger artists including Van Morrison, the Stereophonics, Robbie Williams and Cerys Matthews, mostly recorded with each guest’s usual producer. It became the biggest seller of his career, topping the UK Albums Chart in 1999 and again in 2000, and selling more than four million copies worldwide. For a singer 35 years into his career, it was an extraordinary second wind.

Its biggest single was “Sex Bomb”, the collaboration with German DJ and producer Mousse T., released as a single on 8 May 2000. The track reached number three on the UK Singles Chart and was a smash hit across Europe, turning Jones, then approaching 60, into a dancefloor name all over again. Among Tom Jones songs, “Sex Bomb” is the great outlier: playful, funky and deliberately cheeky, it proved that his voice could ride a house beat as easily as an orchestra. It remains a staple of his live shows, usually greeted with the loudest cheer of the night.

The Late-Career Revival: Praise & Blame to Surrounded by Time

The most surprising chapter of Tom Jones songs began in 2010, when Jones teamed up with producer Ethan Johns for Praise & Blame, a stripped-back set of spirituals and blues recorded almost live in the studio. Gone were the orchestra and the showroom gloss; in their place was a weathered, close-miked voice singing about faith, mortality and hard living. Critics loved it, and Jones followed it with Spirit in the Room in 2012 and Long Lost Suitcase in 2015, digging deeper into the American songbook with every record.

The revival reached a remarkable climax with Surrounded by Time, released on 23 April 2021. The album, his 41st studio record, debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart — his fourth UK number one album, and his first since Reload in 1999. At 80 years and ten months old, Jones became the oldest male artist ever to top the UK albums chart with an album of newly recorded material, overtaking Bob Dylan, who had topped the chart at 79 in June 2020. It was a record that said as much about endurance as about chart success.

Alongside the albums, Jones found a new generation of fans as a coach on The Voice UK, a role he has held on and off since the show’s launch in 2012, mentoring three winners: Leanne Mitchell in series one, Ruti Olajugbagbe in series seven, and Anthonia Edwards in series 11. And in 2009 he had already scored an unlikely third UK number one single, “Barry Islands in the Stream”, the Comic Relief version of “Islands in the Stream” recorded with Ruth Jones, Rob Brydon and Robin Gibb — his first UK chart-topper since “Green, Green Grass of Home” in 1967, a gap of 42 years. Few careers in pop contain a fact quite like that one.

Tom Jones Songs: The Essential Playlist

If you are building a playlist of Tom Jones songs for the first time, these ten recordings cover every era, from the 1960s explosion to the late-career revival. Chart positions are UK peaks unless stated otherwise.

Song	Year	Peak	Why it matters
It’s Not Unusual	1965	UK No. 1	The breakthrough; his signature song
What’s New Pussycat?	1965	Top Ten hit	Bacharach and David film theme
Thunderball	1965	Film theme	The James Bond theme
Green, Green Grass of Home	1966	UK No. 1 (7 weeks)	The crooner masterpiece
Delilah	1968	UK No. 2	Ivor Novello winner; stadium anthem
I’ll Never Fall in Love Again	Late 1960s	UK No. 2	The great late-60s ballad
She’s a Lady	1971	US No. 2	His biggest American hit
Kiss (with Art of Noise)	1988	UK No. 5	The 1980s reinvention
Sex Bomb (with Mousse T.)	2000	UK No. 3	The dancefloor comeback
Barry Islands in the Stream	2009	UK No. 1	Comic Relief; 42-year gap record

Start with the 1960s hits, then jump to Reload and Surrounded by Time to hear how the same voice aged. The contrast is the point: the young Jones shouts joyfully, the older Jones sings like a man who has lived every line. Both are unmistakably him, and that consistency across six decades is why Tom Jones songs continue to find new listeners.

Conclusion

There are plenty of 1960s survivors, but very few who kept reinventing themselves as successfully as Jones. He moved from pop idol to crooner, from Las Vegas headliner to dance collaborator, and finally to a serious interpreter of blues and spirituals — and at each stage the public came with him. That is rare, and it is why his catalogue rewards listening in full rather than as a handful of oldies.

There is also a specifically British dimension to Tom Jones songs. He is a Welsh working-class singer who conquered America, headlined Las Vegas for decades, and still came home to sing for Wales — whether at Cardiff Castle, on The Voice UK, or in the rugby debates over “Delilah”. His songs are part of the national furniture in a way that few pop catalogues ever become.

The homecoming instinct runs deep. In May 2005, approaching his 65th birthday, Jones returned to Ynysangharad Park in Pontypridd for a concert before a crowd of around 20,000 — his first performance in his home town since 1964. It was a reminder that, for all the Vegas showrooms and chart records, Tom Jones songs began in the clubs and streets of South Wales, and that is where their emotional centre has always stayed.

Tom Jones songs repay a proper listen. Start with the number ones, stay for the ballads, and finish with the late albums, where one of the great voices of British pop sounds more honest than ever. Six decades on, the voice that launched “It’s Not Unusual” in 1965 is still filling rooms — and still finding new audiences.

If this guide helped you rediscover the catalogue, share it with someone who only knows the hits, and check back on FamePost for more UK music guides. And before you press play, one suggestion: listen to “Green, Green Grass of Home” and “Surrounded by Time” back to back. The distance between them is the whole story.

Sources: uDiscover Music — Tom Jones artist guide; Wikipedia — Surrounded by Time (album).