Two songs from CAROUSEL

IF I LOVED YOU

from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, Carousel

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This gorgeous duet (go here) from the film version of the Broadway musical, Carousel, is really an operatic duet, with extended recitative (recitativo=recitation) passages that intermit the main melody, which itself is operatic in octave range. Below is the complete text:

BILLY: How do you know what you would do if you loved me? How you would feel, or anything.

JULIE: I don't know how I'd know. But I know how it would be if I loved you.

BILLY: But you don't.

JULIE: No, I don't. But somehow I can see just exactly how I'd be if I loved you, time and again I would try to say all I'd want you to know. If I loved you, words wouldn't come in an easy way, round in circles I'd go. 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!

BILLY: Well anyway you don't love. That's what you said, wasn't it?

JULIE: Yes. I can smell them. Can you? The blossoms. The wind brings them down.

BILLY: There ain't much wind tonight. Hardly any. You can't hear a sound, not the turn of a leaf, nor the fall of a wave hitting the sand. The tide's creeping up on the beach like a thief, afraid to be caught stealing land. On a night like this, I start to wonder what life is all about.

JULIE: And I always say two heads are better than one to figure it out.

BILLY: I don't need you or anyone to help me. I got it figured out for myself? What are we? Just a couple of specks of nothing. Look up there. Why you can't even count the stars in the sky, and the sky so big the sea looks small. And two little people, you and I, we don't count at all. You're a funny kid. I don't remember ever meeting a girl like you. Hey, are you trying to get me to marry you?

JULIE: No!

BILLY: Well then what's putting it into my head. I wonder what it would be like?

JULIE: If you loved me? But you don't.

BILLY: No, I don't. But somehow I can see just exactly how I'd be: If I loved you, time and again, I would try to say all I'd want you to know.  If I loved you, words wouldn't come in an easy way, round in circles I'd go. 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! Well anyway, I ain't the kind of a guy to marry anybody. Even if a girl were foolish enough to want me to I wouldn't.

JULIE: Don't worry about it, Billy.

BILLY: Who's worried?

JULIE: You're right about there being no wind. Blossoms are just coming down by themselves. Just their time to, I reckon.
[The orchestra swells as the couple kiss, then tenderly subsides again.]

REPRISE

This song is reprised (repeated) at the end of Carousel (go here). But notice how a single change in a little word makes a big difference. Now instead of singing "If  I loved you," Billy sings "how I loved you." Billy has been killed and returns as a ghost to affirm his enduring love.

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BILLY: Julie! Longing to tell you but afraid and shy. I'd let my golden chances pass me by. Now I lost you, soon I will go in a mist of day and you never will know how I loved you, how I loved you.

The final sequence, Julie's acceptance of Billy's death, reprises one of the great inspirational songs of the century, "You'll Never Walk Alone." Go here.

JULIE: When you walk through a storm hold your head up high and don't be afraid of--

MOTHER: When you walk a storm hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of a storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of a lark. Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone! You'll never walk alone.

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To hear Mario Lanza's recording of this song, go here. To hear Irish tenor, Robert Young's recording, go here. But the video shows MARIO LANZA, not ROBERT YOUNG!