Sunday Music: You’ll Never Walk Alone

My friend Justin shared a post this week titled “Good Company > Alone.” 

My first reaction was to make a terrible Bad Company (the band) joke. 

But then I started thinking about “Alone.”

About how when you have a good crowd around you, you feel like you can do anything. And about when you have a lousy crowd around you, you’re happiest, most productive, and closest to peace in those moments of isolation. 

It sucks to be alone AND it sucks to be in bad company (speculating here, but I’m talking about “in reality,” not “in the band”). 

John Green would have me add, “Two of the fundamental facts of being human are 1. Whether we can walk or not we must go on, and also 2. None of us ever walks alone. We may feel alone, in fact, we will feel alone, but even in the crushing grind of isolation we aren’t alone.”

And John Green’s quote belongs next to the song of the week’s lyrics:

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

For your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone

There’s your difference between good company, bad company, and alone: hope. 

The only place hope is absent is in bad company. 

And boy do I know a thing or two about that. 

Go read Justin’s post, and just for kicks, here are FIVE – fun, different, and inspired – renditions of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” 

Play it. Have hope. Keep good company.

Liner Notes:

First is the OG version from the movie, adapted from the musical Carousel, jump to 3:30 if you just want the song, and the reprise is at 7:00. Second is Gerry and the Pacemakers classic remake that every soccer fan knows. Third is Brittany Howard breaking your heart open with her voice – which is one of my all-time favorites. Fourth is Anfield singing together after 528 days without singing it together. Five is Patti mf’ing LaBelle doing it live at the Apollo with some crazy ass cowboy hat/hair, a dress made presumably from purple Easter basket grass, and a fully peeped-out yellow choir (if you listen to none of the others, please don’t skip this one).