You'll Never Walk Alone" is a
show tune from the 1945
Rodgers and Hammerstein musical
Carousel. In the second act of the musical, Nettie Fowler, the cousin of the female protagonist Julie Jordan, sings "You'll Never Walk Alone" to comfort and encourage Julie when her husband, Billy Bigelow, the male lead, commits suicide after a failed robbery attempt. It is
reprised in the final scene to encourage a graduation class of which Louise (Billy and Julie's daughter) is a member. The now invisible Billy, who has been granted the chance to return to Earth for one day in order to redeem himself, watches the ceremony and is able to silently motivate the unhappy Louise to join in the song.
The song is also sung at association football clubs around the world, where it is performed by a massed chorus of supporters on matchday; this tradition began at
Liverpool F.C. in the early 1960s.
Background
Christine Johnson, who created the role of Nettie Fowler, introduced the song in the original
Broadway production.
[1] Later in the show
Jan Clayton, as Julie Jordan, reprised it, with the chorus joining in.
In the film, it is first sung by
Claramae Turner as Nettie. The weeping Julie Jordan (
Shirley Jones) tries to sing it but cannot; it is later reprised by Julie and those attending the graduation.
Subsequent history
Besides the recordings of the song on the
Carousel cast albums and the film soundtrack, the song has been recorded by many artists, with notable hit versions made by
Roy Hamilton,
[2] Frank Sinatra,
Gerry and the Pacemakers,
Judy Garland,
Elvis Presley,
Johnny Cash,
Andy Williams,
Johnny Maestro and The Brooklyn Bridge,
Olivia Newton-John and
Doris Day. Progressive rock group
Pink Floyd took a recording by the Liverpool
Kop choir, and "interpolated" it into their own song, "
Fearless", on their 1971 album
Meddle.
From 1964 through 2010,
Jerry Lewis concluded the annual
Jerry Lewis Labor Day MDA Telethon by singing the song.
[3] After the end of a concert by the rock band
Queen, the audience spontaneously sang this song, according to lead guitarist
Brian May,
[4] and this helped to inspire the creation of their songs "
We Are the Champions" and "
We Will Rock You". Italian-American tenor
Sergio Franchi sang a notable version accompanied by the Welsh Men's Choir on the June 9, 1968 telecast of
The Ed Sullivan Show.
[5] He also covered this song in his 1964 RCA Victor album
The Exciting Voice of Sergio Franchi.[6] American singer and songwriter
Barbra Streisand sang this song in a surprise appearance at the close of the
2001 Emmy Awards, in honor of the victims of the
September 11, 2001 attacks.
[7]
In 1990 at the
Nelson Mandela: An International Tribute for a Free South Africa concert at Wembley Stadium London, the audience spontaneously broke out into a mass rendition. Mandela turned to
Adelaide Tambo who accompanied him onto the stage and asked what the song was. She replied, "A football song".
Renée Fleming sang the song at the Concert for America, which marked the first anniversary of 9/11,
[8][
better source needed] and for the
Inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, 2009.
[9]
In 2010, this was sung during the festivities of the Last Night of
the Proms, with the choir at the
Royal Albert Hall joined by crowds of the public from Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland; Caird Hall, Dundee; Hyde Park, London; Salford, Greater Manchester; and Wales, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Oscar Hammerstein II.[
citation needed]
In the second season of
American Horror Story, this song was recited as a poem.
It has been the song of the
Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps song since 1954, where they first performed it as a part of their first field show in 1954. Challenged by the Rosemont
Cavaliers singing "
Over the Rainbow" in 1957, the corps responded with "You'll Never Walk Alone", and it has been the official corps song ever since.
Punk band Dropkick Murphys covered the song for their 2017 album
11 Short Stories of Pain & Glory. "As you may know,
opiate overdoses are an epidemic in America now particularly in this area (
Boston). I've been to thirty wakes in two years, three this week, one being my cousin,
Al lost a brother in law. It's hit home close to us. I was leaving one of the wakes and this song came on and as I was listening to the lyrics it summed up exactly how I was feeling. Sad but knowing there is hope. You never have to be alone" vocalist/bassist
Ken Casey said in a December 2016 interview discussing the reason behind their version.
Sporting anthem
"You'll Never Walk Alone"
Single by Gerry and the Pacemakers
from the album How Do You Like It
Released October 1963
Recorded July 2, 1963
Studio EMI Studios, London
[10]
Genre Merseybeat,
baroque pop
Length 2:40
Label Columbia (EMI) (UK),
Laurie Records (US)
Producer(s) George Martin
Gerry and the Pacemakers singles chronology
"
I Like It"
(1963) "
You'll Never Walk Alone"
The 'Shankly Gates' entrance to Liverpool's home stadium
Anfield
In the UK, the song's most successful
cover was released in 1963 by the
Liverpudlian Merseybeat group
Gerry and the Pacemakers, peaking at number one on the UK singles chart for four consecutive weeks. Sung by Liverpool fans in 1963, the song quickly became the anthem of
Liverpool F.C. and is invariably sung by its supporters moments before the start of each home game with the Gerry and the Pacemakers version played over the
PA system.
[11][12][13]
According to former player
Tommy Smith, lead vocalist
Gerry Marsden presented Liverpool manager
Bill Shankly with a recording of his forthcoming
cover single during a pre-season coach trip in the summer of 1963. "Shanks was in awe of what he heard. ... Football writers from the local newspapers were travelling with our party and, thirsty for a story of any kind between games, filed copy back to their editors to the effect that we had adopted Gerry Marsden's forthcoming single as the club song."
[14] The squad was subsequently invited to perform the track with the band on
The Ed Sullivan Show[13] and Shankly later picked the song as his eighth and final selection for the BBC's
Desert Island Discs on the eve of the
1965 FA Cup Final.
[15] As Liverpool fans sang "You’ll Never Walk Alone" at Wembley during the 1965 FA Cup Final win over Leeds, commentator
Kenneth Wolstenholmereferred to the song as “Liverpool’s signature tune”.
[16]
Marsden told BBC Radio how, in the 1960s, the
disc jockey at
Anfield would play the top-ten commercial records in descending order, with the number one single played last, shortly before kickoff.
Liverpool fans on the Kopwould sing along, but unlike with other hit singles, once "You'll Never Walk Alone" dropped out of the top-ten, instead of disregarding the song, supporters continued to sing it.
[17][18]
The song was adopted by Scottish team
Celtic after a 1966 Cup Winners Cup semi-final against Liverpool at Anfield.
[13][16] It is now sung by Celtic fans prior to every home
European tie.
[13][16][19] The song has also been adopted by Dutch teams
Feyenoord,
FC Twente and
SC Cambuur,
[20] Germany's
Borussia Dortmund,
FSV Mainz 05,
1. FC Kaiserslautern,
SV Darmstadt 98,
Eintracht Braunschweig,
Borussia Mönchengladbach,
VfL Osnabrück,
Alemannia Aachen,
FC St Pauli,
TSV 1860 Munich,
[21] Belgium's
Club Brugge, Japan's
F.C. Tokyo,
[22] Spain's
CD Lugo.
[23] and the
Marist St. Pats MSP 80/80 Blues. In
Ice Hockey, the song has been adopted by German
Deutsche Eishockey Liga side
Krefeld Pinguine and
Croatian Medveščak Zagreb.
A special recording of the song was made in solidarity with
Bradford City following the
Valley Parade fire in 1985, when 56 spectators died and many more were seriously injured. The song was performed by
The Crowd, which was a supergroup featuring Gerry Marsden,
Paul McCartney and others, and spent two weeks at number-one in the UK.
Some years later, after witnessing a rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone" at Anfield in 2007, the President of the
Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco, said he felt inspired to seek lyrics to his country's wordless national anthem, the
Marcha Real, ahead of
Madrid's bid to host the
2016 Olympic Games.
[24][25]
During the
2014 Hong Kong protests, legislator
Tam Yiu Chung quoted the song during a
Legislative Council of Hong Kong meeting, to salute the Hong Kong Police,
[26] who had received widespread criticism for using excessive force against pro-democracy protesters. More than 2,000 Liverpool Football Club fans in Hong Kong condemned his inappropriate use of the song, comparing his support of the police action to the police actions in the 1989
Hillsborough disaster, where
South Yorkshire Police were found to have distorted facts relating to the
unlawful killing by negligence of 96 Liverpool supporters.
[27][28][29]
On March 13, 2016, after
Borussia Dortmund's 2-0 win against
1. FSV Mainz 05 in the German
Bundesliga, supporters of both teams performed the song to commemorate a Dortmund fan who died from a
cardiac arrest in the stands during the game.
[30]