"You'll Never Walk Alone" is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel”. vIn the second act of the musical, Nettie Fowler, the cousin of the protagonist Julie Jordan, sings "You'll Never Walk Alone" to comfort and encourage Julie when her husband, Billy Bigelow, the male lead, accidentally falls on to his knife while trying to run away after attempting a robbery with his friend, Jigger, and dies in her arms.

The song is reprised in the final scene to encourage a graduation class of which Louise (Billy and Julie's daughter) is a member. vThe 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 Louise and Julie to join in with the song.

The tune was an instant hit – perhaps because the song’s message of triumph in times of adversity spoke to the wartime crowds of April 1945 – less than a month before the end of World War II. vIt remained popular throughout the ’50s, with artists including Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley releasing covers.  Then in 1963, a rendition by the local Liverpool group, “Gerry and The Pacemakers” quickly became the football anthem of “Liverpool Football Club”.

The song is sung by its supporters moments before the start of each home game at Anfield Stadium with the Gerry and the Pacemakers version being played over the public address system.   At that time, Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium was one of the first football grounds to have a PA system, and the top ten songs in the charts would be played over the speakers before the match as a form of pre-match entertainment. 

In 1989 the song took on a much deeper and more tragic meaning after the Hillsborough disaster, when prior to a semi-final game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, a human crush at the stadium in Sheffield injured hundreds of people and 96 fans lost their lives.

On the day after the tragedy, 13,000 people gathered at Liverpool’s Roman Catholic Cathedral; 5,000 in the church, and a further 8,000 spilling into the streets outside. ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ was sung by a lone choir boy, offering both comfort and hope to a city in mourning.

The singing of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ by Liverpool fans became an instant phenomenon itself when “Pink Floyd” incorporated samples of an Anfield crowd singing it into their song “Fearless” which was featured on their 1971 Album 'Meddle'.

Various Sources