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You’ll Never Walk Alone
Words by———– Oscar Hammerstein II
Music by————- Richard Rodgers
One of the most popular songs sung by WA Shearings FMVC is an arrangement by Alwyn Humphreys of You’ll Never Walk Alone. This show tune, from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Carousel, has been recorded by many artists, including Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Kate Smith, Olivia Newton-John, Tom Jones, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Kiri te Kanawa, Bryn Terfel and Mario Lanza. The song’s most successful performance was recorded in 1963 by the Liverpudlian Merseybeat group Gerry and the Pacemakers (peaking at number one in the singles chart for four consecutive weeks).
The song is sung at football clubs around the world, where it is performed by a massed chorus of supporters on match day. This tradition began at Liverpool F.C. in the early 1960s and later spread to several other clubs. A special recording was made in solidarity with Bradford City following the Valley Parade fire in 1985, when 56 fans died and many more were injured. The song was performed by The Crowd (including Gerry
Marsden, Paul McCartney and Rolf Harris.

The choir has recently recorded; ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, on its new album, ‘Comrades in Song’ and when sung in concert never fails to gain rousing response from from the audience. This simple but effective arrangement gives opportunity to the Bass, Baritone and 1st Tenor sections to lead the melody, whilst further depth is added to the sound by a humming harmonic accompaniment. The whole choir sings the chorus, starting very quietly then building to a crescendo and ‘double forte’ for the finale of the song.

‘Softly, as I Leave You’

is a popular song composed by Antonio DeVita with original Italian lyrics by Giorgio Calabrese.
It was originally an Italian success in 1960 by Mina, at the San Remo Music Festival, entitled “Piano” (”Softly”). Initially Mina published a recording of the song as a single in 1960, and later included it on an EP and three LPs.
The English songwriter Hal Shaper, noticed the song and in November 1961 wrote English lyrics to the melody, calling it “Softly, as I Leave You”. It is best known in versions by Matt Monro who reached number 10 on the British charts in 1962. Frank Sinatra also had a hit with the song in 1964 when it reached 27 on America’s ‘Billboard Hot 100’. Other recordings have been made by artists such as Bobby Darin, Andy Williams, Robert Goulet, Doris Day, Elvis Presley (1973) and later Shirley Bassey. ‘The Lettermen’ also included it as a track on their 1964 album She Cried. ‘We Five’ also recorded it, as track eleven on their 1965 album You Were On My Mind. The song haunted jazz legend Shirley Horn, who recorded a very intimate version on her 1987 album ‘Softly’ and as recently as 2004 ‘Softly, as I Leave You’ was reprised by Michael Bublé as a B-side on his EP ‘Feeling Good’.
The song features an unusual structure:
It is in the key of B Maj - in the Sinatra version at least - The general form of the chord progressions is: I, IV, V. In other words; first chord: B, second chord: E (the fourth of B) third chord: F# The same structure is repeated, but this time in the key of D (D, G, A) before falling back to B
Softly As I Leave You” was one of those songs that Elvis never recorded in a studio, but only sang at various live shows in the mid-70s. When he first did it, he just spoke the whole thing with no accompaniment, but he later changed it to include one of his backing singers, Sherrill Nielsen. Elvis would just speak the recitation and the lyrics (except for the very last line which he sang with Nielsen), and Nielsen would sing the lyrics. The recitation would change very slightly each time he did it, but below is the most usual version.

“This next song, ladies and gentlemen, is a song that’s been around for a long time, but I’d like to tell you the story behind the song. There’s a man who’s dying in hospital, and his wife has been sitting by his bedside for three days and three nights. Somewhere on the third day, between midnight and day, she lay down beside him and dozed off to sleep. And he felt her when she dozed off to sleep and at the same time he felt himself start to die. And he didn’t want her to see him pass away, so he took his notepad from the side of the bed and he wrote …….