The record in context

In 1965, manager Gordon Mills secured Tom Jones a run of film themes, and the first was the title song of Woody Allen’s comedy What’s New Pussycat?, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was an unusual assignment: Bacharach’s melodies are famously intricate, full of odd phrase lengths and key changes, while Jones’s gift was raw, volcanic power. The pairing should not have worked. Instead, “What’s New Pussycat?” reached number eleven in America and became one of the songs Jones would sing for the rest of his life — the cheeky, winking counterweight to all the heavy drama in his catalogue.

The song matters because it shows the other Jones. The 1965 breakthrough could easily have typecast him as the bellowing balladeer, but here he is light on his feet, playing a comic lothario with a twinkle. Decades later he would still open shows with it, and audiences would still roar at the first “What’s new, pussycat? Whoa-oh-oh.” A signature is not always the biggest hit; sometimes it is the song that lets the artist be himself.

Listen closely

Start with the rhythm. The record bounces on a jaunty, almost vaudevillian beat, and Jones rides it with a looseness you rarely hear in his ballads. He is not pushing the voice here; he is tossing the lyric around, landing the rhymes with a grin. Listen to the way he handles “pussycat” itself — part purr, part punchline. Bacharach wrote a sophisticated tune, and Jones answers it with pure personality.

Now listen for the bridge, where the melody climbs and the arrangement swells. This is where the two sides of Jones meet: the comedian of the verses has to become the belter of the chorus, and he makes the gear change sound effortless. That shift — from charm to power and back — is the technical trick of the whole record. Lesser singers would lurch; Jones glides.

Finally, notice how the song ends: not with a bang but with a wink, the title phrase tossed off like an afterthought. It is a small decision that tells you everything about the performance. Jones knew this song was fun, and he refused to let it pretend to be anything else. That honesty is why it survived when so many other 1965 film themes faded.