UK release date: 1956
Topped the chart:
5th August 1956 (for two weeks)
26th August 1956 (for four weeks)
6 weeks total
How odd Carousel is. Imagine a version of It’s A Wonderful Life tasked with saving the soul of villain Mr Potter instead of George Bailey and you’ll be partway there. A domestic abuser and failed armed robber is sent down from heaven (very easy to get in as it turns out) to help give his daughter and widow confidence, which he achieves by smacking his daughter in the same way he did her mother. This lets her know it’s him looking over them.
And a bit takes place near a carousel. I think.
“Of its time” is maybe the kindest way to put it, but we aren’t here to review the story and its moral implications when mercifully little of it turns up in the music itself. Even then, the songs drift from one to next and are staggeringly unmemorable—save for one towering colossus, which we’ll come to shortly.
Carousel kicks off a run of Rogers & Hammerstein musical film soundtracks that topped the chart through 1956. This is the sound of middle-class, middle-20th Century that sold by the bucketload, with an operetta tone that owe more to Gilbert & Sullivan than Cole Porter and Gershwin. There is far better to come from them- most of Carousel drifts along pleasantly, but considering the dark immorality of the story, you’re left wanting for a bit more bite.
There are highlights—Carousel Waltz is all Wurlitzer, carnival atmosphere that peppers the ballet and overture sections; June is Bustin’ Out All Over and Blow High, Blow Low are instant earworms that bring disappointingly short burst of joy; while If I Loved You is a gorgeous little love song. There’s also a song called A Real Nice Clambake which is about, um, a real nice clambake.
But then there’s You’ll Never Walk Alone.
It’s easy to forget that this Liverpool FC stalwart started life as a R&H emotional high watermark, which may well be their most impressive single tune. It’s placing in the show doesn’t help, but with a little context removed on the soundtrack album, it’s message of support and soaring chorus is incredibly comforting—a precursor to Bridge Over Troubled Water. Alas, it also hangs like an albatross around the soundtrack’s neck as nothing else comes close. If you’ve only ever heard this sung tunelessly by football crowds, I urge you to go back to the song’s origins.
Carousel’s soundtrack is ably performed by the leads, especially Gordon Macrae (who we’ll meet again shortly), and I’m sure there are impressive music theory touches that fans of classically-leaning musicals will lap up. For the rest of us, it all falls a bit flat, especially when you consider the greater Rogers & Hammerstein work on the horizon.
Score: 5/10
Wow! I did not know ‘You’ll Never Walk Around’ had its origins here. Very pleased you pointed me in its direction because it is beautiful. I only knew it because of its football links.