Ramblings

In Britain, a Carousel is that infuriating thing at the airport. You’re already tired when you see it, and your luggage always seems to be the last to arrive. In the USA, though, it can mean something much more jolly: a fairground merry-go-round. Or if capitalised, the wonderful 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical or the 1956 film of that name. The musical was adapted from Ferenc Molnár’s 1909 play Liliom, and moved the action from Budapest to the coast of Maine, USA.

It’s a pretty silly story, driven by antihero Billy Bigelow’s idea that the best response to the news that he is to become a father is to agree to take part in an armed robbery. But of course it has some glorious music: in England most commonly represented by Gerry Marsden’s spirited rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone, which is never further away than the next Liverpool trophy.

My parents had an LP of the film soundtrack, and played it frequently. My brother and I would giggle at the vague suggestiveness of June is Busting Out All Over, and put our own lyrics to another song:

That was a real nice clambake 
Whatever a clambake is

Dad patiently pointed out that a clambake is a gathering where people, um, bake clams. Despite our mockery, the music was getting through to me: particularly their special song, If I Loved You:

Longing to tell you,
But afraid and shy
I'd let my golden chances pass me by
Soon you'd leave me,
Off you would go in the mist of day,
Never, never to know
How I loved you
If I loved you.

Mum was never shy of expressing her love for Dad, but she might have thought the song expressed his hesitancy at one stage. Its aching regret makes it one of the most powerful songs in musical theatre.

At their Golden Wedding celebration in 2001, Rob and I hired an opera group to serenade them, and selected some of their favourites. If I Loved You was the only non-operatic song to make the cut. They were embarrassed of course, but mostly delighted.

Last year I transcribed Mum’s letters to Dad from their courtship in 1950-51, which we found after Dad died in 2015. (We didn’t find Dad’s letters in reply.) I was hesitant about reading them – they were, after all, intended for Dad’s eyes only – but curiosity got the better of me. They contained nothing that reflected badly on either of them, so I published them here.

But it was only when I reached her letter from 28th of May 1951 that I found a passage spelling out how much this song meant to Mum:

“Since I met you I want to listen to romantic songs about love – me and you etc. They seem to speak my mind. If they play “If I loved you” I go into a sort of trance. I think we should get a record of that. It reminds me of wandering through the streets of London. Heaven knows where we were but I think we were both beginning to realise how much we were to mean to one another. Cupid was pointing his arrows.”

When they saw Carousel it was still in its first West End run. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been long before Dad took the hint and bought the LP. The message wasn’t lost on them: in life and in love you must seize your chances. Within three months of Mum’s letter, they were married.

Perhaps – more than seventy years later – I shouldn’t have eavesdropped on their romance, but I’m glad I did. Because now, when I play If I Loved You, I can picture the two young lovers, arm in arm, wandering the streets of London, their feet barely touching the ground, in the golden spring of 1951.