S6 E9: Tom Jones, Donna Summer, Rick Astley, Puff Daddy, Kanye West, DJ Khaled/Rihanna

[gentle music] This is Tom Jones with I'll Never Fall in Love Again.

It was the eighth of 19 top 20s that Tom Jones had between 1965 and 1972, including two number ones.

It peaked at number two in the UK, peaked at number six in the USA.

It is actually the only one of the six tunes in this episode that didn't make number one.

After that, there was a 15-year gap for Tom Jones.

Then he had 10 more top 20s between 1987 and 2009, including another number one as a feature on Barry Island's In The Stream.

That was his final chart entry to date.

So put them all together, he's had 29 hits all together spanning a full 45 years.

Having said that, he did get to number one on iTunes in 2022 with a song called I Won't Crumble With You If You Fall, and he was back in the iTunes top 10 just a few weeks ago with his cover of Leonard Cohen's Tower of Song.

There have been two other songs called I'll Never Fall in Love Again which charted.

Again, both in the sixes, but they're not the same song.

So we've got one by Johnny Ray in 1960, got to number 26, and we've got a very well-known one by Bobby Gentry from 1969 that got to number one.

I'll Never Fall in Love Again is Tom Jones' sixth-most streamed song on Spotify, the top five being It's Not Unusual, She's a Lady, Sex Bomb, Delilah, and Green Green Grass of Home.

So- Open brackets, it looks like close brackets.

All the videos on the internet give this the title of open brackets-

Mm

...

it looks like close brackets I'll Never Fall in Love Again.

And having listened to several different versions, I can't really tell the difference, if there is one.

There is certainly a BBC session version that open brackets, it sounds like close brackets, is the superior version.

There's just something about that that I'll get back to later on.

But for a style of music that I don't particularly love, I think this is sparklingly excellent.

I really enjoyed listening to it.

Now, I'm not sure that I've heard this before.

I was expecting, I think, one of the songs that Mike just referenced about never gonna fall in love, or never wanna fall in love, or never gonna wanna fall in love.