<Table> <Tr> <Td> "This and That" (1966) </Td> <Td> "Green, Green Grass of Home" (1966) </Td> <Td> "Detroit City" (1967) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> "This and That" (1966) </Td> <Td> "Green, Green Grass of Home" (1966) </Td> <Td> "Detroit City" (1967) </Td> </Tr> <P> "Green, Green Grass of Home", written by Claude "Curly" Putman, Jr. and first recorded by singer Johnny Darrell, is a country song originally made popular by Porter Wagoner in 1965, when it reached No. 4 on the country chart . That same year it was sung by Bobby Bare, and later Tom Jones, in 1966, when it became a worldwide No. 1 hit . The song had also been recorded the previous year in 1965 by Jerry Lee Lewis, and included on his album Country Songs for City Folks (later re-issued as All Country), and Jones had learned the song from Lewis's version . </P> <P> A man returns to his childhood home; it seems that this is his first visit home since leaving in his youth . When he steps down from the train, his parents are there to greet him, and his beloved, Mary, comes running to join them . All is welcome and peace; all come to meet him with "arms reaching, smiling sweetly ." With Mary the man strolls at ease among the monuments of his childhood, including "the old oak tree that I used to play on ." It is "good to touch the green, green grass of home ." Yet the music and the words are full of foreshadowing, strongly suggestive of mourning . </P>

Who recorded green green grass of home first