From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

If I Loved You

1945 song by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

Summary

1945 song by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

Field	Value
name	If I Loved You
type	single
artist	Perry Como
B-side	I'm Gonna Love That Gal (Like She's Never Been Loved Before)
released
recorded
genre	Popular music
length
label	RCA Victor 20-1676
composer	Richard Rodgers
lyricist	Oscar Hammerstein II
producer	Herb Hendler
prev_title	Temptation
prev_year	1945
next_title	Till the End of Time
next_year	1945

| B-side = I'm Gonna Love That Gal (Like She's Never Been Loved Before) "If I Loved You" is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel.

Background

In the show, the characters of Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan sing this song as they hesitantly declare their love for one another, yet are too shy to express their true feelings.

The song was in turn inspired by lines of dialogue from Ferenc Molnár's original Liliom, the source material for the musical.

Carousel

The song was introduced by John Raitt as "Billy Bigelow" and Jan Clayton as "Julie" in the original Broadway production.

The song was performed in the 1956 film version Carousel by Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.

Other recordings

There were four hit versions of the song in 1945: Perry Como (#3), Frank Sinatra (#7), Bing Crosby (#8) and Harry James (#8). In 1954, Roy Hamilton's recording went to #4 on Billboard's, Best Sellers in Stores chart. A version by Chad & Jeremy reached #16 on Canada's RPM charts, March 29, 1965.

Many artists have recorded the song over the years. Vagabon recorded a version for the 2023 film Red, White & Royal Blue.

References

Gilliland, John.. (197X). "Pop Chronicles 1940s Program #14 - All Tracks UNT Digital Library". Digital.library.unt.edu.
"Internet Broadway Database".
(1986). "Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories 1890-1954". Record Research Inc.
Whitburn, Joel. (2004). "Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004". Record Research.
"RPM Top 40&5 - March 29, 1965".
"secondhandsongs.com".
Lynch, Joe. (2023-08-08). "Why the ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ Soundtrack Doesn’t Exactly Follow the Book".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1945-songs songs-with-music-by-richard-rodgers songs-with-lyrics-by-oscar-hammerstein-ii shirley-jones-songs barbra-streisand-songs andy-williams-songs male–female-vocal-duets songs-from-carousel-(musical) love-themes

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about If I Loved You — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report