Sir Tom Jones defends his signature tune, Delilah

Row over whether people should sing song at Welsh rugby games.

Singer Tom Jones at the BBC Music Awards

(Getty)

Sir Tom Jones has defended his signature tune Delilah - about the murder of an unfaithful woman by her partner - amid a row over whether people should sing it at Welsh rugby games.

The Welsh singing star said the song describes “just something that happens in life” after calls were made for Welsh Rugby to ban the song before matches because of claims that it trivialises murder.

Sir Tom said on Thursday night: “I love to hear it sung at rugby games. It makes me very proud to be Welsh.

“I think if they're looking into the lyric about a man killing a woman, it's not a political statement.

“It's just something that happens in life that it's woman was unfaithful to him and he just loses it.”

Sir Tom, who performed at the BBC Music Awards with Paloma Faith on Thursday, said he did not think people really thought about the lyrics.

“The great thing about the song that everyone picks up on is the chorus. I don't think that they are really thinking about it,” he said.

“I wasn't thinking that I was the man that was killing the girl when I was singing the song, I was acting out the part and that's what the song is.

“If it's going to be taken literally like that then I think it takes the fun out of it. I think it takes the spirit out why it's being sung.”

The song, which was number 2 in the charts in 1968, includes the line: “She stood there laughing, I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more.”

Former Plaid Cymru president, Dafydd Iwan, a folk singer, said the song promoted domestic violence.

According to The Sun newspaper, Mr Iwan, 71, said: “Do we really realise what we are singing about here? It is a song about murder and it does tend to trivialise the idea of murdering a woman.

“It is a pity these words now have been elevated to the status of a secondary national anthem.”