You'll never walk alone in Daydreaming on the Porch
- Aug. 26, 2016, 6:12 a.m.
- |
- Public
Lately, I’ve been going to YouTube and listening to favorite old songs from the sixties. I guess as I get older, I get more and more nostalgic for that seemingly simpler time in my life. Certain groups stand out for me like Herman’s Hermit’s, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Righteous Brothers, The Easy Beats, The Monkees, Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys – the list goes on. They all bring back so many memories of the “innocent” years of the early and mid-sixties before the dark years of the King and Kennedy assassinations, race riots, and the Viet Nam war debacle reaching a crescendo of folly, violence and protests. For awhile when I was in 9th and 10th grade in 1965 and 1966, life was fresh and new (or so it seems now by comparison), I was growing up and maturing, I was trying to discover who I was, and I was not yet worried about being drafted into the Vietnam War.
I’d always known about Gerry and the Pacemakers’ hit from 1963, “You’ll never walk alone,” but until recently it was just another favorite oldie, one I liked but hadn’t paid particular attention to. But when I first saw the video with the Liverpool residents and football fans singing the song over the recording, I was moved beyond words. I keep listening to it, especially when I’m feeling down or need a lift. There’s something about the people in that video, drawn from all walks of life, old and young, singing their version of the song that touches me deeply and gives me hope for humanity.
Maybe you’ve seen the video. If not, here it is:
Last updated October 27, 2016
Eriu ⋅ August 26, 2016
I like to look up videos of some of those artists, not for nostalgia but because they had good songs. I do look up some musicians for memory's sake, like the Bay City Rollers, who have reunited, and others whose songs I liked. It reminds you of a time when everything was possible.
Deleted user ⋅ August 26, 2016
That song is one of my favorites. We used to sing it in chorus when I was in Highschool . It's from a musical called, " Carousel" written about 1945 By Rogers and Hammerstein. It's a song sung to the main character when her husband, Billy Bigelow, commits suicide , after a failed robbery attempt. Her cousin sings it to her to comfort her. Billy gets to come back to Earth for one day to redeem himself , see his beloved wife and his child graduate. The same song is performed then. That musical has a lot of other very good songs as well !
Oswego Deleted user ⋅ August 26, 2016
I was reading a history of the song and came upon that info. Never realized. Thanks for your note, which definitely filled in some details for me.
Deleted user Oswego ⋅ August 26, 2016
It's worth listening to the soundtrack if you like musicals at all ..
Marg Deleted user ⋅ August 27, 2016
That's one of the reasons I could never listen to that song without crying - that film had me in tears when I watched it!
Deleted user Marg ⋅ August 27, 2016
Me too ! It's a good musical. Rogers and Hammerstein were geniuses ..
Marg ⋅ August 27, 2016
It's a stirring song even without the video - but with it - wow! The sixties and seventies were definitely the best time for music - funnily enough I just watched a great documentary on 1966 the other night and then another one on seventies music. I kind of feel akin to both eras because I grew up very close to my sister who is 7 years older than me so I grew up with all the sixties bands and then was a teenager myself in the seventies! Great times :)
Oswego Marg ⋅ August 27, 2016
Interesting. I actually went to high school in the late sixties so my really formative years were the seventies, a strange and amazing decade for me and the music was so much a part of everything that happened, and now, so much a part of my memories of those times. It was an era when life seemed full of endless possibilities.
Marg Oswego ⋅ August 31, 2016
Wasn't it just! I personally think that was the best era for music and nothing has beaten it so far but maybe that's the 'oldie' in me starting to come out!! :D
middle age pearl ⋅ August 27, 2016
Brought back a flood of memories and a few tears too.