The record in context

After “Delilah” became a phenomenon in 1968, its writers Les Reed and Barry Mason did the obvious thing: they wrote Tom Jones another one. “Daughter of Darkness,” released in 1970, is the unofficial sequel — another tale of dangerous love, another towering chorus, another invitation to sing at the top of your lungs. It reached the UK top five and kept Jones’s run of high-drama singles alive into the new decade.

The song is fascinating because it shows a formula being perfected. “Delilah” had been almost accidental in its power; “Daughter of Darkness” is deliberate, engineered, every gear in the machine oiled and gleaming. Where “Delilah” told a story, this one delivers a sensation. And the sensation is Jones himself: by 1970 he was no longer a young singer hoping for a hit, but a seasoned showman who knew exactly what his audience wanted and exactly how to give it to them.

Listen closely

Start with the sheer scale of the production. The record opens big and gets bigger — brass, strings, a rhythm section driving like a getaway car — and Jones enters already at full intensity. There is no build here, no coiled tension like “Thunderball.” This is a singer starting at ten and looking for eleven. Listen to how the arrangement keeps finding new layers to add: each chorus is bigger than the last, as if the studio itself is being overwhelmed.

Now listen to what Jones does with the lyric. The “daughter of darkness” is a femme fatale figure, and Jones sings her with a mixture of warning and worship — he knows she will ruin him, and he cannot stay away. Listen to the way he leans into the title phrase, savouring every syllable: it is pure theatre, the villainess given a theme tune. Where “Delilah” had genuine anguish, this has relish. Jones is enjoying himself, and the enjoyment is contagious.

Finally, notice the ending — a full-throated climax that simply refuses to wind down gracefully. It is the sound of a performer who has decided that subtlety is for other people. And that is the real story of “Daughter of Darkness”: not the song, but the singer’s absolute confidence in his own excess. By 1970, Tom Jones had become a genre unto himself, and this record is the genre’s national anthem.