♫ You’ll Never Walk Alone ♫

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

There are only three songs by Gerry and the Pacemakers that I have played before:  Ferry Cross the Mersey (2); Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying; and I’m Telling You Now.  Last time I played Ferry Cross the Mersey in 2021, several readers mentioned this one, You’ll Never Walk Alone.  I’m sure that at the time I intended to play it shortly thereafter, but as happens to many of my plans, that thought went astray and I never played it.  So tonight, I was thinking to redux Ferry Cross the Mersey, but when I looked back at the comments, saw the suggestions for this one, I decided to change course and play this instead.

I was surprised to learn that this was originally written for the 1945 musical Carousel. It was sung in the original show by Christine Johnson.

According to SongFacts …

Frank Sinatra was the first artist to take this song into the charts (#9 on the Billboard charts in 1945). It soon became very popular as many who had lost loved ones during the war took solace in the lyrics. Judy Garland recorded a well-known version, and in the 1950s several American rock n rollers sang it, including Conway Twitty, Gene Vincent and Johnny Preston.

Gerry & the Pacemakers had included the song in their stage act for a long time. When they decided to record it as their third single, producer George Martin enhanced the song by adding strings. When it topped the UK chart, they became the first act to reach #1 in the UK with their first three singles. Soon afterwards, it was adopted by the fans of Liverpool Football Club as the club’s anthem.

Elvis Presley covered this song, releasing it as a single in 1968. His was one of four versions of the song to chart in the US in the ’60s:

  • 1964 Patti LaBelle & Her Blue Belles (#34)
  • 1965 Gerry & The Pacemakers (#48)
  • 1968 Elvis Presley (#90)
  • 1969 The Brooklyn Bridge (#51)

Following a damning report into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in which 96 football fans died, Liverpool Walton MP Steve Rotheram started a campaign to get this song back into the UK charts. As a result it returned to the UK top 20 in September 2012 with the proceeds being donated to Hillsborough-related charities.

Radio stations across Europe, including the BBC, joined forces to simultaneously play “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in a show of solidarity against coronavirus. The song ran out at 7:45 a.m. GMT on March 20, 2020, on hundreds of European radio stations. Dutch radio presenter Sander Hoogendoorn of 3FM, who came up with the idea, explained: “We all have to do what we can to beat this crisis. Things like this just go beyond the boundaries of radio channels. [The song] could speak to those doing an incredible job working in healthcare right now, those who are ill or those who can’t leave their house for a while.”

This topped a “lockdown listening list” collated by The Official Charts Company of the UK’s most popular coronavirus quarantine tracks. They compiled the survey by analyzing the songs that had the biggest percentage increase in listens and purchases, March 23-29, 2020, the week after Britain went into lockdown. They found a mixture of “uplifting classics” and “apocalyptic isolation” tunes being blasted from the nation’s speakers as folks adjusted to life in the COVID-19 era.

99-year-old Captain Tom Moore joined forces with Michael Ball and the NHS Voices Of Care Choir to record a charity cover in April 2020. The war veteran captured the UK nation’s hearts by raising over £26 million ($32 million) for the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic by walking lengths of his garden.

All proceeds are being donated to Captain Tom Moore’s 100th Birthday Walk in aid of NHS Charities Together, which supports the NHS staff and volunteers caring for coronavirus patients.

Captain Tom Moore’s version entered the UK chart at #1, making Moore – six days short of his 100th birthday – the oldest person to achieve a chart-topping single.

In March 2021, a few months after Gerry Marsden died, Brittany Howard and Chris Martin performed “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as part of the “In Memoriam” segment on the Grammy Awards.

The Pacemakers’ version reached #1 in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK, #31 in Canada, and #48 in the U.S.

You’ll Never Walk Alone

Gerry and the Pacemakers

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark

At the end of a storm
There’s a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
For your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone

You’ll never walk alone

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone

You’ll never walk alone

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rodgers

You’ll Never Walk Alone lyrics © Concord Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

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48 thoughts on “♫ You’ll Never Walk Alone ♫”

      • Oh, Jill…it’s a great movie. The dad is a bad guy of sorts and gets killed in a brawl. Shirley Jones plays his wife, and as their daughter grows, she continues to miss him. He is given a chance to ‘make things right’, and comes (in spirit) to her graduation, and that’s the song. Here’s a personal note: My mother was a strong woman. Loving, yet strong. She never cried when our father died and made sure all was okay with us. I never saw my mother cry until we watched the movie together when I was a teenager, and that song came on. Wow!

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Even though I am English, I am desperately tired of hearing this song. The association with Liverpool Football Club has little relevance to someone originally from London, and the song is ‘paraded out’ every time someone wants to use it for a charity, or to tug at heartstings for some reason. Call me an old grump, but I think it’s time to retire this one. 🙂
    (Hit and miss with being able to see/comment on your posts. This one worked, some of the others didn’t. I seem to have run out of options now. Happiness Engineers told me to use The Reader, but that doesn’t always work for me with your blog.)
    Best wishes, Pete.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Nah, that doesn’t make you an ol’ grump! I can understand, if it’s played that much! I must admit I enjoyed that clip that Roger included in his comment, but then I rarely hear the song, so I’m not overloaded by it!

      I’ve found that with the Reader, it works better for me if I set up numerous lists with only about 20 blogs per list, that way it’s not so overwhelming having 100 or more blogs showing up all in one place, and I can pick one list, go through it (I don’t read every post on every blog I follow, but pick what I think is interesting based on the amount of time I have), then move onto the next list.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Carousel is one of my favourite musicals, but actually the overture, the Carousel Waltz, is my favourite piece. Unusually for a musical it is not derived from the songs. anyway it is a piece for livening and cheering us up.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I have a tragic story about Gerry and the Pacemakers’ music — actually a lot of British Invasion music. My best friend growing up had some strange “beliefs,” I will call them. He could only like one style of music at a time. When the British Invasion started he threw out all his rock n roll records (Budfy Holly, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc) and bought every Brit record he could find. He had an excellent collection. One day when I went to visit he was sitting with his BB gun amidst a pile of vinyl shards. I asked him what was going on, and he ssid he woke up that morning snd decided he hated British Invasion music and was going psychedelic. I wanted to cry, but being best friends I tried to understand. Then he pulled out 3 albums he said he has saved so I could watch, and he proceeded to shoot his Gerry and the Pacemaker albums into tiny pieces. Why those ones? Because my name wss Gerry! (I changed the spelling after that to Jerry. I did not want to be associated with his insanity.)
    No, he never became a serial killer, but his music tastes chsnged msny times after that, and each time he destroyed the old ones. I, who loved everything simultaneously, could not understand. As we got older we grew apart, and I moved away. I have no idea how many more records he destroyed before he died, but there must have been a lot. I heard in the end he swiched to Country music.

    Liked by 2 people

    • That is indeed a tragic story … I think your friend had some serious mental health issues. But it wasn’t tragic about Gerry and the Pacemakers, but rather about your friend. Just think how much joy he could have given someone if he had donated those records, given them to some teen who couldn’t afford his own. Sad.

      Liked by 2 people

  9. Despite its show music origins I’ve always liked this one. Gerry and the Pacemakers were a fun band. They released their first three singles in 1963, and this was the third of them, after How Do You Do It and I Like It. All made #1 here, almost unheard of for a band new to the charts. If you ever need cheering up, try those first two.

    By the way, I tried clicking on the image of the video from your email, and all it did was take me to YouTube on the web, but I would then have needed to go back to the email to read the rest of your post. As I said earlier, I think you should have stuck with the previous format for your emails, as it is so much more convenient for readers. Well, all apart from one, it would seem. And you got a page view from me for this, into the bargain 😉

    Liked by 3 people

    • Funny things happen, maybe its the different countries, I don’t know. But when Jill’s videos take me to YouTube, I just hit the “page back” button and I am right back on her post. Hope this helps, Clive.

      Liked by 3 people

      • Quite probably. I just click through from the email to read the post, but we’d been chatting earlier about her changing her email settings so that’s what I was talking about there. Just proves you can’t please all of the people all of the time!

        Liked by 1 person

        • If I go through the emails I have to sign in evry time in order to post a comment. The “Remember Me” never remembers me. I find that a pain. I still use the reader app and it mostly works for me. But not always…

          Liked by 2 people

          • That is a pain, isn’t it. But the reader doesn’t always give credit for post views, resulting in that strange thing where no one has apparently viewed a post but someone has ‘liked’ it! No perfect solution, is there 😊

            Liked by 1 person

            • Ah. I don’t give a damn about credits, or likes, or whatever. I only use the like button when a post or comment really impresses me. I use my comments to let the blogger know if their post inspired me. I comment on most posts I read, that is my version of a like.
              The only reason I have a like button on my own posts is because readers asked for it. I had it turned off, hoping to get more readers to comment. But a number of readers asked for the like button, so I gave it to them. I really don’t pay any attention to likes. And I pay no sttention at all to views. Once a month WP sends me a summary of my stats.I delete it without opening it. Maybe that is why I have so few “followers,” but I’m not out for numbers. I want to attract people who care about the things I care about. That’s me.

              Liked by 3 people

              • I like the ones I read as acknowledgement. I read to try to gain some understanding which is greatly enhanced by others viewpoints. Everything you see is determined by where you stand. If everyone agrees with you you are in a silo blinded by invisible walls.

                Liked by 1 person

                • My comment is acknowledgement. Understanding is good, but one cannot guarantee understanding if no communication tskes place. Humans think they understand, from their own points of view. If the writer has a different point of view, understanding could be false, no matter how good a writer they are. Where I stand is in left field, beyond the bleachers. The ball seldom gets out to me.

                  Liked by 2 people

                  • It is my belief that the developers gave a like option instead of a binary choice to eliminate any animosity or misunderstanding of a dislike. Besides one need not agree with something to like what is said, I hope.

                    Liked by 1 person

                    • Nope. Not necessary. But I like conversation. I spent too many years as an introvert. The old me might have l9ved a “like” button. But then I discovered you cannot have a true relationship without “words” of some kind. So I became an extravert. I am much happier now.

                      Liked by 1 person

            • I always wondered if I just clicked ‘like’ from Reader if the author got a view credit … now I know, so I’ve made it a point to actually open the post and click ‘like’ from there!

              Liked by 2 people

    • I’m so glad you liked this one! Heck, Clive, I always need cheering up, so I will check them out soon!

      Yes, I’ve found the same to be true about videos where the entire post is included in the email. I can usually decide within the first 2-3 sentences if I’m interested in reading a post, at which point I simply go directly to the post … the pictures are clearer, links work better, and I can ‘like’ and leave a comment. I’m thinking to go back to the excerpt … overall, I think it’s the better way for both reader and author. Thanks for the page view, my friend! I must return the favour … SOON!!! I’m so far behind … I need two of me!

      Liked by 1 person

      • It’s an iconic song here. Adopted as ‘their’ tune by supporters of Liverpool FC, also by Celtic in Scotland. It’s quite moving when being belted out by 50,000 people!

        Just do what feels right for you. One lazy moaner shouldn’t make you do anything else.

        Liked by 2 people

        • I loved the clip Roger included in his comment!!! You guys stand together when it comes to sports!

          Thanks, Clive … this is one time that I’m not sure what’s right, so I’ll give it a bit of thought. As we’ve both said about the music posts, you can’t please everyone all the time!

          Liked by 1 person

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