Songs with the name Tom

Few names have been set to music as memorably as Tom. Rush's "Tom Sawyer" (1981) is the definitive one — a driving, synth-drenched prog-rock anthem built on Alex Lifeson's guitar snarl and Neil Peart's thunderous drumming, with a lyric that makes Sawyer a portrait of restless modern independence. On the folk side, The Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" (1958) is spare and mournful, a banjo-and-harmonica ballad about a real 19th-century murder in North Carolina that helped ignite the whole folk revival. Bob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" (1965) is hazier: a rambling, organ-fueled journey through a disorienting landscape that reads like a bad trip narrated in half-rhymes.

Tom Waits brings the most literary entry, "Tom Traubert's Blues" (1976) — a boozy, waltzing ballad of exile and Copenhagen, sung in a voice that sounds aged beyond its years. Jay-Z's "Tom Ford" (2013) strips the name down to a luxury brand, riding a stuttering trap beat and squealing synths. Warrant's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1991) is glossy late-'80s-style hard rock telling a dark Southern gothic tale, while "The Ballad of Tom Jones" (Space feat. Cerys Matthews, 1998) plays it for laughs — a jaunty, swinging duet about feuding lovers who keep threatening each other with Tom Jones songs.

Ben Folds Five's "Tom & Mary" (1995) closes things on a sly note, with Folds' piano pop telling of two students and a campus scandal in his usual wry, melodic style. Poor Tom — Led Zeppelin's contribution — is an acoustic blues outtake (released 1982), built on Jimmy Page's skittering guitar and Robert Plant's keening vocal, a rough-edged gem from the band's archive.