Delilah

Tom Jones’s “Delilah” is the song that sends Cliff Booth looking through a record store’s locked 8-track selection. He has heard it on the radio for weeks but can recall only its chorus, and his interest in its story draws him to buy Tom Jones’s Greatest Hits. The search turns a private musical fixation into an encounter with Pussycat: she laughs at his choice, then puts the tape into the car stereo, where a different Tom Jones song takes over the scene.

The song and Cliff’s fixation

For three weeks, “Delilah” has been haunting Cliff since he first heard it on the radio. He wants to pay attention to the song’s story, but the only part he can remember is the chorus; catching fragments when the song happens to play is not enough. The gap between the memorable refrain and the story he wants to hear gives his search its simple purpose: he needs a recording he can play for himself.

The story’s subject also has a particular appeal to Cliff. The narration observes that he is partial to songs about men who kill women. That detail makes “Delilah” more than a tune lodged in his memory: its narrative subject is part of why he wants it. The book does not recount the song’s full story or lyrics here, but it does connect Cliff’s interest to that specific theme.

Finding the 8-track

At the store, Cliff asks where the 8-track tapes are. The employee explains that Susan has the key, because the tapes are kept behind locked glass. Customers cannot browse them freely: an employee must unlock the case and watch while they inspect the selection. Once Susan opens it, Cliff scans the titles for Tom Jones’s “Delilah,” among records by Steppenwolf, the Fifth Dimension, Ian Whitcomb, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and others.

He finds Tom Jones’s Greatest Hits and takes it from the case. The purchase is a practical answer to a small frustration—radio has given him only an elusive chorus—but it also makes his taste visible to the people around him. Susan gives an audible, barely concealed laugh. Cliff asks whether choosing Tom Jones is funny; she nods. His attempt to obtain the song has become a moment of public teasing before he has even played the tape.

From “Delilah” to “What’s New Pussycat?”

Later, Pussycat pulls the Tom Jones 8-track from her little burgundy bag and laughs at it too. Cliff objects to her handling his things without asking, then defends his choice, explaining that he likes “Delilah.” Pussycat holds up the tape and jokes about whether the store had run out of Engelbert Humperdinck. Cliff answers that he likes him as well. Their exchange turns the object Cliff sought for one song into a shared joke about his taste.

Pussycat tears off the cellophane, removes the cardboard border, and switches the car’s music system from the radio to the tape player. The 8-track lands with a loud clunk; after a brief stretch of hiss, Tom Jones’s “What’s New Pussycat?” blares through the speakers. It is not “Delilah,” the song Cliff had been trying to hear, but the switch redirects the moment. Pussycat admits that she likes this song, turns up the volume, and dances in the passenger seat. The sought-after title has brought the tape into the car; another title supplies the music for their immediate exchange.

Narrative function

“Delilah” works as a small but concrete link between Cliff’s solitary desire and an encounter with Pussycat. The sequence begins with a song he cannot fully recover from memory, moves through the locked display and Susan’s laughter, and ends with Pussycat choosing what the tape plays. The progression shifts the emphasis from the song Cliff wants to the music they actually share: he searches for “Delilah,” while “What’s New Pussycat?” becomes the scene’s audible payoff.

The contrast also keeps the moment grounded in the ordinary material details of listening: a radio that offers only occasional fragments, a key held by an employee, a glass case, a newly opened 8-track, and the tape player’s hiss before the music starts. The song’s importance is not that it receives a full performance in this passage—it does not—but that wanting it prompts the purchase and gives the ensuing exchange its subject.