The Road

Album: 24 Hours (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • In this confessional ballad, Tom Jones addresses his infidelities but adds that however far and often he has strayed, he has always returned home to his wife Linda, who married him more than 50 years ago.
  • Jones told The Sun newspaper about the original inspiration for this song: "Lisa Green, who was involved in the whole songwriting process, said, 'You've got a wife?' I replied, 'Yeah, known her since I was 16'. And she said, 'Wow, your wife's still with you!' That started her going and she came up with 'The road always leads back to you'."
  • In an interview with The Guardian newspaper October 25, 2008, Jones started reciting some of the song's lyrics: "'I have felt weakness when I was strong, felt sweetness when I was wrong.'" He then went on to say, "Linda wouldn't say to me, 'What d'you mean by that?' No, she wouldn't do that. The thing that she likes more than anything else is, 'But the road always leads back to you.' And that 's the truth. I will never leave my wife. It never entered my mind." They've been apart a lot, he says. "But we are still in love with one another. You know, we're not sexually like we were, but we are still in tune with one another, we can still have fun with one another, we still talk. She's still the Welsh girl I married."
  • The Sun asked Jones if Linda had heard this song. He replied: "She hasn't commented on it and I haven't spelled it out but she loves the album."

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