Welsh singer Sir Tom Jones' hit song 'Delilah' could reportedly be banned from his country's rugby matches after campaigners claimed that it glorifies domestic violence.
The protest to ban choirs from singing the well-known ballad at Cardiff's Millennium stadium is being led by senior Welsh nationalist politician Dafydd Iwan, who claims that the song should not be sung because of its depiction of the brutal revenge killing of a woman.
The song, which reached number two in the charts when it was released in 1968, includes the lyrics, 'At break of day when that man drove away, I was waiting/I cross the street to her house and she opened the door/She stood there laughing/I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more', The Daily Express reported.
Even Jones himself has belted out the ballad at the home of Welsh rugby during matches.
Iwan, the former president of Plaid Cymru and a renowned folk singer, said that the song had become a secondary national anthem and called for it to be replaced. He questioned whether they really realise what they are singing about in the song.
Iwan claimed that it is a song about murder and it does tend to trivialize the idea of murdering a woman, adding that it's a pity these words now have been elevated to the status of a secondary national anthem.
Meanwhile, Welsh Rugby Union bosses have defended the song by comparing it to Shakespearean tragedies. A spokesman said that within rugby, Delilah has gained prominence through its musicality rather than because of its lyrics.
He said that there is however plenty of precedent in art and literature, prominently in Shakespearean tragedies for instance, for negative aspects of life to be portrayed.
