While walking the Camino de Santiago, I went over the Hospitales section in miserable weather. It was a bleak landscape, and though in sunshine it might be beautiful, on that day, the wildness only added to the gloom. But I walked on through the mist and the rain until I came to my destination for the day. There is a song that somehow came into my mind, though how that happened I am not sure. Possibly, it came from somewhere deep in my subconscious.
The song is “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, and here are the words:
The song comes from the Broadway musical Carousel. As the main character in the musical suffers tragedy, one of the supporting characters sings the song to give her hope in the face of that tragedy. The musical debuted in the middle of 1945, playing to a country and a world that had suffered six years of war. People were surely looking for that golden sky, and the song immediately resonated with those hopes.
In the 1950s, cover versions were released my many recording artists, including big names such as Frank Sinatra and Roy Orbison. However, it is the 1963 version released by the Liverpool band Gerry and the Pacemakers that has had the most lasting effect. The song went to number one in the British pop charts, and stayed there for four weeks. At that time, for their home games, Liverpool Football Club would play the top ten chart songs over the public address system, in descending order, with the number one song coming just before kick-off. The Liverpool fans took up the song, singing along as it played. After the song dropped out of the top ten, the fans continued to sing it before each match, and it has subsequently become the club anthem. The story goes that years later, in a conversation between Liverpool manager Bill Shankly and Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers, Shankly said: “I gave you a football team and you gave me a song”. The words “You’ll Never Walk Alone” are incorporated into the wrought iron over the gates of the Anfield ground
In 2005, in the UEFA Champions League final in Istanbul, Liverpool were losing 3-0 to AC Milan. The Liverpool fans started singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to get behind their team. With such motivation, and their innate skill, Liverpool came back to level the match at 3-3, and won the night on penalties. Carlo Ancelotti, the manager of AC Milan said afterwards: “In my opinion Liverpool fans. When they sing a song, they… I don’t know in English, but your skin is…”(flutters his fingers up and down his arm to explain). I think that goosebumps is the word he was looking for.
If a song can do that for a football team, it is no wonder that it helped me get through a wet day on the Camino.
Walkingman 