Tag Archives: Captain Tom Moore

♫ 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

A Few Tidbits …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Global Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, Tributes

R.I.P. Tom Moore

Tom-MooreI start today’s post on a sad note.  You’ll remember that I’ve written about Captain Tom Moore, the UK veteran raised tens of millions of pounds for Britain’s health workers by walking 100 laps of his garden last spring.  Sadly, he died this morning after being treated for pneumonia and then testing positive for the coronavirus last month. 

Mr. Moore’s own words of optimism come back to us at this time …

“We will get through it in the end but it might take time, but at the end of the day we shall all be OK again… the sun will shine on you again and the clouds will go away.”

Reading of Tom Moore’s death first thing this morning brought a tear to my eye.  He was one of the good people and will be long remembered.  Thank you, Captain Tom Moore, for a lifetime of being a good man … the world needs many more like you.  R.I.P.

tom-moore-graffiti

The price for a conscience …

Representative Liz Cheney from Wyoming was one of ten Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Donald Trump late last year, and now she is paying a high price.  The people of her state are turning against her, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be meeting with her this week, possibly planning to strip her of her committee assignments and her position as House Republican Conference Chair, the third highest ranking position in the House Republican leadership.

This is ridiculous!  The woman voted her conscience, saying that Trump “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.”   She also called his incitement “the greatest betrayal by a president of the United States of his office.” She was correct on both counts, and yet she is likely to be asked to apologize for both her words and her vote.  Why?  Because the entire Republican Party is populated by cowards who are afraid of the ‘man’ who is no longer in the Oval Office. 

I am not a fan of Liz Cheney, but she followed the dictates of her conscience, something the rest of the slime in the Republican Party cannot do because they traded their consciences for a box of Cracker Jacks long ago.  She does not deserve to be censured or otherwise punished, and the people of Wyoming need to wake up and realize that Trump was the biggest threat this nation was facing until just 13 days ago!

And on the other hand …

On the other hand, there is Marjorie Taylor Greene, the pistol-packing idiot from Georgia who now sits in the House of Representatives.  I’ve written before about Greene, so I don’t need to repeat what I’ve already said, but she, like Ms. Cheney, will be having a one-on-one meeting with Kevin McCarthy sometime this week for her racist comments, for supporting the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, for saying she wished death upon some of her fellow members of Congress, and other behaviours not acceptable for a member of Congress.

She is likely to receive a slap on the wrist for her horrendous words and actions, though she could lose her committee assignments.  While I definitely hope she loses her committee assignments, one of which is the Education & Labour Committee … she belongs nowhere near those who make decisions concerning our children’s education!  She would likely demand that firearms training be included in every school’s curriculum! 

If McCarthy doesn’t strip her of her committee assignments, the Democrats are likely to do so.  She sits on the following committees …

  • Judiciary
  • Education and Labor
  • Energy and Commerce
  • Financial Services
  • Foreign Affairs
  • House Administration
  • Oversight and Reform
  • Transportation and Infrastructure
  • Ways and Means

She has no relevant education or experience in any one of these areas, so I’m not sure where the logic in determining her assignments was. 

But what I would really like to see is her expulsion from Congress.  It can and should be done before she causes a disaster, either by shooting someone within the Capitol (she has said she would like to see House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a bullet in her head), or by turning the House of Representatives into a three-ring circus. 

The United States Constitution (Article I, Section 5, Clause 2) provides that “Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

It would, however, require 70 Republicans to find a conscience and vote to expel Ms. Greene, and we all know there aren’t 70 republicans with courage & conscience in the entire Congress.  Sigh.

Good People Doing Good Things — Big ‘n Little

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Global Issues, Good people doing good things, Social commentary

This past week, we have seen a heck of a lot of not-so-good people in the news, so it’s time to turn our heads in another direction and look at some of the really good people who are helping others.  I honestly believe that the majority of people in this world are good people who will do whatever they can to help others.  Unfortunately, they don’t get near the attention they deserve.

Contagion among good people …

Remember last week I wrote about Captain Tom Moore, that 100-year-old World War II veteran who raised thousands for the UK’s National Health Service by completing 100 laps in his garden?  Turns out, he inspired a few others around the globe to do something similar.

mickey-nelsonWorld War II veteran Mickey Nelson, 99, is walking 100 miles through his small city of Clarks Grove, Minnesota, to raise money for Covid-19 relief through the Salvation Army’s feeding and emergency programs.

joseph-hammondPrivate Joseph Hammond, 95, has become a familiar sight on the streets of Accra, Ghana, during his daily walks to raise money to support frontline workers and impoverished veterans across Africa.

tobias-wellerAnd Tobias Weller, a 9-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, says he was inspired by Captain Moore to finish a marathon with his walker, one half-mile at a time. Tobias raised $100,000 for the Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Paces School, a school that supports children and adults with neurological conditions in his hometown of Sheffield in northern England.

See … this is the great thing about being a good people … it’s contagious!

Generous youths …

The 8th grade class at the Waldorf School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had spent the entire year raising $2,800 for their rafting trip. But their trip was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

So, the students chose to make a major impact on the lives of others by using the money to help the Navajo Nation.  In May, the Navajo Nation surpassed New York and New Jersey for the highest per-capita coronavirus infection rate in the US — another sign of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on minority communities.

Parent Jess Falkenhagen spoke with Navajo leaders to find out what supplies were urgently needed.

The students used their $2,800 fund to purchase diapers, formula, toilet paper, wipes, medicines, soup, potatoes, pasta, beans, rice, pet food and a dozen reusable five gallon jugs filled with water.navajo-donationFalkenhagen drove with her daughters, Daisy and Indie Russell, to Window Rock, Arizona, to make the delivery on behalf of the eighth-grade class.  The student’s teacher was proud of her class …

“I am very proud of my students, but I’m not surprised. This is a very generous and compassionate group of teens. They have been raised to think outside their own immediate lives and it shows in moments like this.”

Young people … the hope for our future.

A good people … no wait … TWO good people

Small ‘mom & pop’ restaurants and their staff all over the country have been hit particularly hard during the shuttering of businesses as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.  Today, I want to tell you a little story about one such restaurant, Bill’s Café in Naples, Florida.

When I first read the headline, “Anonymous donor gives one Naples cafe $40K to stay open”, I thought it sounded like a nice story to add to my ‘good people’ post this week, but I didn’t know the whole story.  Let’s start with the present.  Says Bill Salley, owner of Bill’s Café …

“The last day I was open before they forced us to close because of the COVID situation he [the anonymous customer] goes ‘Bill I’d like to talk to you’. He says listen I have two envelopes for you … one for you, one for your help.  And It was so nice and kind of him…. but that probably wouldn’t have saved me…it was a nice chunk of money in that but not enough to make a difference.

A week later he calls me up and tells me, ‘Bill, would you be interested in sending a hundred sandwiches a day across the street to Naples community hospital’ and before he even finished, I said ‘I’m in!'”

The customer paid full price for the sandwiches, five days a week for eight straight weeks, so that the hospital employees would get them for free.

“It literally saved my café.  It was so nice and kind of him.”

And that made for a nice story of a good person helping not only Bill keep his café, but providing food to hospital staff for free!  Good enough, right?  But, as is my habit, I double check the information I use for these stories, mostly to make sure they are on the up-and-up and that I have the facts right. So, when I ran the name Bill Salley, I found something else!

bill-salley-1An article in the May 12, 2016, Naples Daily News tells of a woman known only as Sue, who goes to Bill’s Café every morning, has a nice breakfast, and walks out without paying.  Sue, you see, is homeless and Bill never turns away a homeless person.

“I’ve done it everywhere I’ve worked. I can’t let anyone go hungry.”

When a local posted about Salley’s generosity on Facebook, it went viral, but Salley was surprised.

bill-salley-2“I have always believed that we live in a world that is better now than ever and that there are more good people than bad. I know that I am not special, that there are many individuals who daily show acts of kindness to others. They do it not for recognition or attention but because it’s the right thing, the humane thing and a good thing to do.”

Seems to me that the helping hand Bill got from his anonymous customer was more than deserved!

And there you have it, friends.  Proof positive once again that there are good people in this world, doing what they can to help others with no expectation of a reward.  It’s these people who remind me that despite the horrors of the day, there is still hope for humanity.