To say that 2020 has gone as far as anyone expected it to, is a lie. This year has been of anxiety for some people, of deep sadness with sickness and death for others, and of great annoyance and self righteous grandstanding for others. The grand question which is being asked of us is one of what kind of obligations do we owe to our fellow citizens; with the answers being returned ranging from concern to none at all.
The present time is one of those rare moments which is shared by all of us; which has meant that you can refer to 'this' and 'it', while being completely understood. It has become a descriptive which needs no definite object while at the same time, there is one one object. Naturally you'd expect that people have retreated to their happy places of culture; with 90s sitcom having a resurgence on streaming services like Netflix, as well as songs which have reentered the public consciousness such as 'We're All In This Together' by Ben Lee from 2005.
As a football fan (a rather long-suffering one at that) and a fan of Liverpool Football Club, the song 'You'll Never Walk Alone' has never really been that far away from my consciousness, considering that it is sung at virtually every Liverpool home game. What's made this extremely weird though, with the 2019/20 season extending for more than twelve months because of the present pandemic, is that 'You'll Never Walk Alone' has been absent from the terraces because the crowds were also absent. The story of how we got to this song as the anthem for a football club is somewhat complex and is itself quite interesting.
You have to go back to 1909 and the play 'Liliom' by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár. The play which was a commercial failure, was then shopped around to be put onto a bigger stage and Molnar even went so far as to reject an offer by Giacomo Puccini. It was however picked up by Rodgers and Hammerstein who turned it into the musical 'Carousel'.
The titular Liliom which is the Hungarian word for "lily" a slang term for "tough guy" (his name is actuallu Andreas Zavocky) is the spruiker for a carousel at a travelling circus. He falls in love with a woman called Julie and when Julie falls pregnant, Liliom attempts a robbery in order to help support his new family. However, he commits suicide after failing at the attempted robbery. He ends up in purgatory.
The song is sung twice during the play. The first time by Julie's friends immediately after Liliom has died and it is sung by way of encouragement by Julie's friends, as she is newly widowed. The next time it is sung is when Liliom and Julia's now sixteen year old daughter Louise, is going through her graduation ceremony from school. Liliom who is still in purgatory is allowed one day on earth, on which he visits his daughter. Louise is upset and doesn't want to join in but somehow she can feel her father's encouragement despite him being invisible to her and she begins to sing as well. In 'Carousel' Liliom became Billy Bigelow.
The song which was part of the musical came out in 1945 but it wasn't until the 1963 release by the Liverpool band Gerry and the Pacemakers, that the song was taken up by the supporters of Liverpool Football Club who began singing it at Anfield. It became part of the soundtrack for Liverpool's glory years as well as it's darkest days. The really weird thing about the song is that in spite of its ridiculous cheesiness, it works in both times of great success and in times of hardship. It followed Liverpool Football Club right through the success of league titles and FA Cup and European Cup wins in the 1970s and 1980s, and then was rereleased by Gerry and the Pacemakers following the crowd crush at Hillsborough Stadium in which 96 people died.
Liverpool Football Club soon acquired a new reworking of their club crest with two flames either side of the shield for both the disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough, and the complete lintel of the gates which were named after the famed manager Bill Shankly; which also bears the legend 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.
Liverpool's string of success came to an abrupt end in 1990 after the British Government placed a ban on English clubs competing in European competition for five years and Liverpool specifically, for ten. Those conditions were eventually lifted but not before significant damage had been done. During Liverpool's ban from European competition, the Premier League was formed and the European football association UEFA reorganised the European Cup into the new European Champions League; which also meant that Liverpool were specifically banned from competing and missed out on the extra revenues that clubs like Manchester United and Chelsea were getting. Liverpool's own internal squabbles didn't help and it wasn't until this year that Liverpool won another league title; being 30 years after the previous one.
Perhaps one of the strangest ironies about Liverpool's 19th league win is that the song 'You'll Never Walk Alone' has not been heard around Anfield because of lockdowns and lockouts of fans because of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has visited Liverpool's 19th league win. I was immediately struck by the thought that Liverpool winning the league came at a time when thanks to various kinds of restrictions, we are alone from each other. For me personally, it has meant that virtually nobody in my exceedingly small sphere of contact cared. I do not think that it is beyond the realms of possibility to suggest that since March 23, the number of people who I have had an in person conversation with for more than 10 minutes who wasn't a member of my family, is 5.
I was standing in line for the bus this morning, when it was 6°C outside according to the electronic clock thing on the other side of the street and someone must have seen me standing there shivering when they started singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' loudly as they walked off down the street. It was only then that I realised that the end of my scarf with the club crest and the legend 'You'll Never Walk Alone' was sticking out.
He could have obviously been a Liverpool fan but given what we're all going through, he equally might not have been. I was reminded that back in April, yet another cover version of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' featuring British Army Captain Sir Tom Moore singing with theatre star Michael Ball and the NHS Voices of Care Choir was released to raise money for Britain's NHS. I find it interesting that a song from a musical, which is sung after a character commits suicide; which was adpoted by a football club, has now been readopted by people in this pandemic. Maybe this is a time of heightened anxiety, worry, sadness, sickness, and death but if we are supposed to learn anything from this, it should be that people do things and build things better while in community.
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