Tom Jones International

We’re not posting this to open up another debate here but, instead, because we think it’s funny (and we get to use the title above for the post). Of course, we in the US thought Tom did a fine job with a difficult song. But, what do we know? In most places, (like the US, Canada, UK, France, etc.) citizens grow up singing the national anthem and, by the time they are out of school, certainly, they’ve learned it. But, apparently, Sir Tom’s rendition of the Welsh anthem reflects on a nationwide problem and lots of people just don’t know the song. (If you want to see video of the event, scroll down to the April 19 post.) For the record, we thought it was very human when Tom asked if the mic was on….and if they didn’t want their celebs to appear as if they’d partied, why have a pre-fight party. After all, the event was at 7 p.m. Las Vegas time. They was plenty of time to celebrate after the fact. Anyway, the writer here has a good suggestion that will save future anthem-singing-designees some trouble: “Call it Tom’s Law, put it on the curriculum and make it a legal requirement that every Welsh child is word perfect in the National Anthem by the age of seven.”

For the record, we think the decision on this bout goes to Jones by a knockout.

We don’t all sing from the same hymn sheet
Apr 28 2008 Carolyn Hitt, Western Mail

THE town of Pontypridd has given two marvellous gifts to the world – the Welsh National Anthem and Tom Jones. Just don’t put the two together.

Jones the Voice has long been the global ambassador for the Land of Song. But Tom why, why, why didn’t you learn the lyrics to the Land of My Fathers? His pre-Calzaghe fight performance was less than knockout.

I blame Catherine Zeta Jones. You know what Welsh ex-pats are like out on the lash. Maybe she slipped him a few too many cans of Brains Dark out of her handbag before he stepped into the ring.

Yet Tom’s Vegas version certainly brightened up a Monday morning as the video clip was e-mailed to offices across Wales. We were clutching our stomachs laughing at the improvisations… particularly the one that sounded a bit like “bl**dy”.

Across the Atlantic, they lapped it up in the Thomas & Mack Center. Tom is such a legend Stateside he could get away with singing What’s New Pussycat? in Serbo-Croat. Given the average Yank’s knowledge of Wales, they wouldn’t have known the difference if he had. But closer to the green, green grass of home, there was mixture of amusement and embarrassment.

It wasn’t on a Redwood scale. The humiliation of the Vulcan with the mouth of a goldfish will never be surpassed. It was just rather, well, hit and miss. On the ensuing radio debate, cultural historian Peter Stead gave the Sex Bomb a generous 8 out of 10 for effort as he reckoned Tom had the “authenticity of a pub singer”.

Let’s not be too sniffy about this. There was indeed something “authentic” about the Ponty Pelvis’ anthem rendition. And we’re not just talking about the moment that was straight out of Treforest Non Pol’ club circa 1971 when he boomed into the microphone: “Is it on? Right, ’ere we go!”

Listen to any rugby crowd and you will hear the language of heaven being similarly ad-libbed. We are, of course, in the curious position of around 80% of the population singing a national anthem that is not written in their first language. They may attempt it with patriotic gusto, but not necessarily with linguistic accuracy. I have seen bilingual friends wince at the pronunciation of some surprisingly high-profile singers. Learning it from a tea towel, I made a conscious effort to get the anthem right when I joined a choir as a teenager. But we’d never been formally taught the anthem in primary school. As Catholic pupils, we only learned the Lord’s Prayer in Welsh, which isn’t quite as useful for rugby matches, unless Hooky’s got a crucial penalty.

It’s not unusual, however, for the monoglot to have picked up the Welsh words in Chinese whispers fashion. While not quite stooping to hens laying haddocks, there will be the odd mangled phrase. It’s the curse of the misheard lyric. For example, for years I sang along to Brass in Pocket bemused as to why Chrissie Hynde says: Gonna use my arms/Gonna use my legs/Gonna use my style/Gonna use my sausage/Gonna use my fingers/Gonna use my, my, my imagination…

I certainly did use my imagination. There was no pork product from The Pretenders – the word was “sidestep”. Tom used his imagination too with a few anthem sound-alikes. But if you can cock it up in your first language, no wonder it can prove tricky in a second. Yet give that man a medallion — he may just have done the nation a favour. Tom has highlighted the taboo fact that not every proud Welsh person knows the words to Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. It’s not enough to help yourself to the lyrics. Isn’t it time the Assembly Government intervened? Call it Tom’s Law, put it on the curriculum and make it a legal requirement that every Welsh child is word perfect in the National Anthem by the age of seven.

In the meantime, now that Cardiff City have been granted permission to have Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau played at the FA Cup Final, Tom could brush up on the lyrics himself for a Wembley encore.

On second thoughts, tell them to give Bryn Terfel a ring…