Green Green Grass of Home

"Green Green Grass of Home", written by Claude "Curly" Putman Jr., is a country song originally made popular by Porter Wagoner in 1964 and Bobby Bare in 1965. Later by Tom Jones in 1966 when it reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 1 December staying there for a total of seven weeks. ["UK No. 1 Hit for Tom Jones on 1 December 1966 (seven weeks at no. one)" http://www.theofficialcharts.com/all_the_no1_songs.php?show=2 Retrieved 01/09/07] (It had been recorded earlier that year by Jerry Lee Lewis, without any great success). The Tom Jones record reached #11 pop, #12 easy listening on the Billboard US charts.

Since then it has been a popular cover song, recorded, for example, by Johnny Cash on his 1968 "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" album, by Joan Baez on her 1969 album "David's Album", by Stompin' Tom Connors on his album "Stompin' Tom Connors, 'LIVE' at the Horseshoe" in 1971, by Elvis Presley in 1975, and also by Kenny Rogers on his self-titled album, "Kenny Rogers", in 1977.

With lyrics in Swedish by Stikkan Anderson as "En sång en gång för längese'n", both Hootenanny Singers and Jan Malmsjö had each 1967 Svensktoppen hit with the song, for six respectively 33 weeks. This language version was also recorded by Lotta Engberg in 1997. With lyrics in Portuguese by Geraldo Figueiredo as "Os Verdes Campos da Minha Terra", it was recorded in Brazil by Agnaldo Timóteo (1967), Belmonte and Amaraí (1968), and others. The song was also recorded with lyrics in Serbian by Riblja Čorba as "Zelena trava doma mog", in 1993.

Overview

The song is about a man who has been away from home for a while. He tells that he is returning to his small home town in the country. When he steps down from the train, he touches the green grass. His parents and "sweet Mary" are there to welcome him. He observes tokens of his childhood, including "the old oak tree that [I] used to play on".

Then comes a spoken section where the singer awakens in prison: "Then I awake and look around me, at four grey walls that surround me. And I realize that I was only dreaming." The man is, in reality, awaiting his execution, and he will only return home when he is dead and buried: "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."

Norwegian singer Tor Endresen has released a version in which he changes "a guard and there`s a sad old padre", to "a garden and a sad old partridge".

References

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/tomjones/pages/tom_talks07.shtml BBC Interview with Tom Jones re. song "Green Green Grass of Home".]