top of page

If I Loved You -- I Wouldn't Let You Beat Me Down

Writer's picture: Rebecca BurnhamRebecca Burnham

Updated: Jan 30


Jessie Mueller and Joshua Henry in Carousel. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.
Jessie Mueller and Joshua Henry in Carousel. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

REVISED with your feedback.



When I planned to write this week’s newsletter about Conditional Love Songs, I thought I was going to be able to tackle that topic in just one week. But it turns out that’s going to be impossible. You see, nobody can write about this particular musical building block without spending a whole bunch of words on the song that gave this style its name: “If I Loved You” from Carousel. And I can’t write about Carousel without needing to process the story and trying to find a way to heal it. So, today’s post is going to focus on the musical that wrote the book for Conditional Love Songs. And next week, we’ll explore how such songs show up in other musicals. 


Carousel is an extremely successful musical that has been wowing audiences and winning major awards from its 1945 original production through its third Broadway revival in 2018. It’s widely beloved as a masterpiece that has heightened the craft of musical-writing ever since. It has also become deeply controversial because of its romanticized treatment of an abusive relationship. And it hits me in painful, personal ways that I can’t just brush off because its underlying message conflates loving someone with accepting their abuse. 


I want to say that it’s okay to depict an abusive relationship in art. It’s not just okay, it can be healing to reveal in compelling terms the lies that victims tell themselves while staying in such relationships, so long as you also provide the compelling counterargument. For example, Nancy’s “As Long as He Needs Me” in Oliver turns such lies into a heart-rending anthem that lays bare her reasons and wins our sympathy at the same time that we’re longing to get her out of there. But Nancy winds up dead and so does her Bill, for killing her. That effectively militates against any sort of message that we should aspire to her style of devotion. 


Such is not the case for Carousel where Julie, the abused woman, sings “What’s the Use of Wonderin” a song that probably inspired Nancy’s. But Billy, the abuser, is the one that winds up dying during a botched armed robbery, while Julie manages through the next 16 years to rise above their shabby beginnings while remaining a paragon of faithfulness to his memory. Of course, she’s never warned their daughter Louise away from repeating her and Billy’s mistakes because, first of all, Julie’s not aware of having made any mistakes, and second, that conversation would require admitting that Billy was abusive (both emotionally and physically), and she’s not going to throw shade on the only man she ever loved. So their daughter grows up on the margins of society, unable to confront or make peace with a father’s legacy that keeps being thrown up against her by the locals. What’s worse is what happens when Billy is granted a brief return to life, meets Louise in her yard, offers her a gift while pretending to be an old friend of her father’s, then slaps her when she’s frightened and refuses it. Louise fetches her mother, distressed but also perplexed because the slap didn’t hurt; it felt like a kiss. She asks, “But is it possible, Mother, fer someone to hit you hard like that - real loud and hard, and not hurt you at all?” Sensing Billy’s presence as the orchestra plays their love song, Julie affirms, “It is possible, dear – fer someone to hit you – hit you hard – and not hurt at all.” 


Wrong answer, Mom. And wrong message.


It bothers me so much that I’m needing to create an alternate ending that breaks two intertwined cycles: fatalism and domestic abuse. The original play (Liliom) on which the musical is based has a fatalistic theme: life is like a carousel that takes you round and round in the same unbreakable cycles. And if you can't change your fate, well then, domestic abuse is something you endure if you love the abuser, because that's just how he is. Before getting to an alternate ending though, let’s look at the whole show and how it manages to win over audiences despite the troubling messages. 


The protagonist is Billy Bigelow, who starts the show as a handsome and charismatic carnival barker whose job it is to sell tickets to the carousel. Flirting with the girls is part of his job description, and his widowed employer, who seems to believe she owns him, doesn’t mind until beautiful Julie Jordan comes into the picture with a fixed and adoring interest in Billy. The widow bans Julie from the carousel. Billy, recognizing she’s jealous, says he won’t enforce the ban and gets fired.


Although he seems to have the gift of eloquence when he’s barking, Billy is defensive and casually insulting one on one. He threatens to hit his ex-employer if she doesn’t shut up and Julie if she dares to feel sorry for him. Nonetheless, Julie accepts his invitation to wait for him just outside the amusement park, even after her best friend, Carrie, reminds her that she’ll miss her curfew and be sacked from her job.  When Billy asks her why she stayed, she says so he won’t be left alone. He calls her dumb and tells her he can have all the girls he wants. Then her employer and a policeman happen by. The policeman advises them that Billy has a reputation for wooing young women, and then running off with their money. The employer tells Julie he’ll make an exception in this case and excuse her lateness if she’ll leave right now. Julie says she’ll stay. 


That’s when the conditional love song begins. Billy doesn’t get an I Want song. Anti-heroes can be an exception to the rule that every protagonist needs one. I think that’s because they tend to be more sympathetic when we don’t look too closely at what’s going on under the hood. 


As the song begins, it’s clear that Julie is head over heels for Billy but not admitting it, and he’s just perplexed. He calls her queer and funny. He quizzes her about her love life and she says she’s never going to marry. What if he was to ask her to marry? Nah, she’d be scared after what the cop said. She wouldn’t marry someone like him. 


Julie replies, “Yes, I would, if I loved you. It wouldn’t make any difference what you – even if I died fer it.” Then she starts singing about how, if she loved him, she’d daydream at the textile mill and mix up the warp with the woof (something Carrie teased her about just a few minutes ago). But she’d never find the words to say it and he’d never know how she loved him… if she loved him. 


Billy checks in to make sure she doesn’t love him, though. She changes the subject, pointing out how the wind is blowing the blossoms down from the trees. But Billy notes that there is almost no wind and starts waxing eloquent about the beauty of the night. It makes you wonder what life is all about. 


When Julie says “two heads are better than one to figger it out” he shuts her down. “I don’t need you or anyone to help me. I got it figgered out for myself. We ain’t important.” 


Julie doesn’t argue and makes no demands, but sings along and Billy starts to sweat. What’s putting ideas of marriage into his head? “You look up at me with that little kid face like – like you trusted me.” And this is no longer a casual flirtation as he starts to imagine what it would be like to love her, and how he, too, would never find the words to say it. But it’s useless. “I’m not a feller to marry anybody. Even if a girl was foolish enough to want me to, I wouldn’t.”


Julie says not to worry about it. He claims not to be worried. And she replies, “You’re right about there bein’ no wind. The blossoms are jest comin’ down by theirselves. Jest their time to, I reckon.” 


Billy ponders as the music swells and she just waits. Then he takes her face in his hands and gently kisses her as the lights dim and the scene ends. In the next scene, they’ll already be married. 


There’s been a lot written about why this song works, but I think I have a different perspective. I’ve been there too. 


There’s something uncanny about the kind of love that settles on Julie for Billy, fully blossomed, out of nowhere, with no particular reason we can trace for its coming. It’s like the blossoms that are falling from the trees without even a breeze to blow them down. 


Julie doesn’t love Billy because he’ll be a good provider; he won’t. Or because he treats her tenderly and makes her feel beloved; no, he’s dismissive, insults her and boasts about other girls. But, by some mysterious power, Julie sees him, straight through his bravado to the wounded heart he’s hiding. She sees and loves the sweetness he isn’t showing, the longing for connection, and she forgives the fear of being vulnerable that fuels his defensiveness. Just as much as the sweetness does, the fear and the pain call to her, and she longs to soothe them away. She knows instinctively that telling him she loved him would feel like a demand he’s not prepared to meet. So she doesn’t. She just sings about what that love would be like if she felt it. That, alone, is hard for Billy to resist. But there’s more. Because she sees past his defenses, he sees trust in her eyes that he hasn’t seen anywhere else. It makes him think maybe he could be worthy of that kind of trust. He doesn’t like himself. He hasn’t liked himself in a long, long time. But she sees something beautiful when she looks at him, and maybe he could be the hero he sees reflected in her eyes. Refusing to gather up such blossoms, when they’ve come down of their own accord like that, wouldn’t make any sense. She’s not even making any demands, she just loves him right now, exactly as he is. How can he resist that?


There’s just one problem. Billy doesn’t have any sort of receptacle in which to place Julie’s unspoken love. It’s beautiful. Irresistible. It has him imagining a life of domestic bliss. But in order to achieve that, he’d have to make friends with himself, and he has a couple decades of aimless habits in the way. In the stage directions, when Julie first mentions the blossoms, Billy picks some up, then drops them. Now, he proceeds to do the same thing with her love. 


When we next see them, they’re staying with Julie’s cousin Nettie and have been married two months. Billy doesn’t have a job yet. Instead, he hangs with a manipulative whaler friend named Jigger who’s grooming Billy to be his fall guy. They’ll stay out all night and then Billy will come home sullen and defensive. Julie’s working hard to put on a brave face and pretend everything’s fine, but the tears are near the surface and erupt at inconvenient times. She confides to Carrie that last Monday he hit her. Carrie’s aghast, calls him “a bad’n” and advises Julie to leave. But Julie defends him: “He ain’t willin’ly er meanin’ly bad.” Then she explains, “He’s unhappy ‘cause he ain’t workin’. That’s really why he hit me on Monday.” That’s only half the story, but it’s all that Julie can see at this point. Billy is unhappy because he doesn’t like who he’s being. She’s trying to treat his unhappiness with love, so she sticks around and lets him take out his pain on her. But every time he does, he likes himself even less. 


By the time Billy arrives home that day from his nightly carouse, the word has already spread through town that he’s been beating his wife. But things are going to change. He gets two offers. Jigger wants to cut him in on a mugging/knifing that will net him $1500. Billy would be interested if it weren’t for the knifing part, but that’s too dirty and he says a hard no. Then his ex-employer shows up with a proposition to come back to her and the carousel. He’d have to leave Julie, but she’ll probably be glad to see him go since he’s obviously sick of marriage and has begun beating her. Billy disputes this, but he doesn’t turn down the offer and when Julie brings him coffee while the widow is stroking his hair, he orders his wife to  “Get out o’ here, or –.” But Julie won’t leave. She has something to tell him, alone. The tempters retreat and she confides that she’s pregnant. 


Billy is ecstatic, embraces her, and wants to take care of her. He turns down the barker job and literally kicks his ex-boss out of the house. Then he sings “Soliloquy” about the joys of raising a son. Only, three-quarters of the way through, he realizes it might be a girl, like Julie. “You can have fun with a son,/ But you got to be a father/ To a girl!” Panicked at first, he warms up to the responsibility of feeding her and protecting her from being “dragged up in slums/ With a lot o’ bums’ Like me!” He’s going to need money, something he’s never known how to get, but as the music swells to a climax, he belts out, “I’ll go out and make it/ Or steal it or take it/ Or die!” Unfortunately, he decides on what looks like the surest route, and lets Jigger know he’s in for the mugging. 


That night, as the whole town celebrates the first clambake of the season, Billy sneaks off with Jigger for the armed robbery. Meanwhile, Carrie’s fiancé has just broken her heart and the women gather to advise her she’s better off without a man. Everyone knows that Julie’s hurting. They urge her to add her voice to the anti-marriage chorus. But Julie sings, “What’s the Use of Wonderin:’”

What’s the use of wond’rin’

If he’s good or if he’s bad,

Or if you like the way he wears his hat?

Oh, what’s the use of wond’rin’

If he’s good or if he’s bad?

He’s your feller and you love him—

That’s all there is to that.

Common sense may tell you

That the endin’ will be sad

And now’s the time to break and run away.

But what’s the use of wond’rin’

If the endin’ will be sad?

He’s your feller and you love him—

There’s nothin’ more to say.

Somethin’ made him the way that he is,

Whether he’s false or true.

And somethin’ gave him the things that are his—

One of those things is you.

So, when he wants your kisses

You will give them to the lad,

And anywhere he leads you, you will walk.

And anytime he needs you,

You’ll go runnin’ there like mad.

You’re his girl and he’s your feller—

And all the rest is talk.


It’s only been two months. He’s breaking her heart. He’s started beating her. And she knows the ending will be sad. But she still loves him with that uncanny devotion that arises from having seen into his heart and having become attuned to all his pain, frustration and fears. There’s beauty in such steadfast devotion, but it’s become unbalanced and sick. In her quest to fill the holes in his heart with a love he can’t even grasp, she’s come to see herself as a “thing,” his thing, that exists to meet his needs. 


She will quickly learn that she cannot save him from himself. It’s maybe half an hour later when the mugging backfires. The would-be victim turns a gun on the assailants and calls for the police. Jigger gets away, but Billy, awaiting arrest and contemplating 10-20 years in prison, opts for death and stabs himself with his knife. Julie arrives in time to say goodbye and holds his hand as he passes. Once he’s dead, she tells him, “”One thing I never told you – skeered you’d laugh at me. I’ll tell you now – I love you. I love you. I love you.” 


So it is that when Billy, stuck outside the gates of heaven, gets one last chance to do enough good to make it through the mother-of-pearly gates at heaven’s back door, by briefly returning to Earth 16 years later, he finds his maladjusted teen-aged daughter raised on “fairy stories” about his history from a mother who won’t say a critical word about him. But every kid in town knows Billy Bigelow was a wife beater and a thief and they won’t let her forget it. She defends his name with a fury that isolates her. She then falls for an older carnival boy who flirts with her steamily, and then discards her. She’s about to graduate school with no friends, and plans to run away and become an actress. 


Billy makes himself visible to her, says he knew her father, but has a hard time coming up with anything good to say about himself beyond that he was extremely good looking and told great jokes. He tries to give her a star, stolen from heaven, which only convinces her that this strange man is a lunatic. Grabbing her by the arm and calling her “darling” doesn’t help. Then, when she tries to pull away, he impulsively slaps her and she runs for her mother. Julie briefly glimpses him before he goes invisible when she arrives on the scene. She tells her daughter that yes, indeed, someone can hit you hard and it won’t hurt at all. They embrace, and Louise goes inside while Julie picks up the star, then sits and basks in Billy’s presence which she can only feel, while he sings a reprise, unheard, of “If I Loved You.” 


He’s failed to help his daughter but asks for an extension so he can attend her graduation, invisibly. Julie and Carrie are the only townsfolk who clap when Louise receives her diploma. Then the country doctor gives a speech, telling them they can’t rely on their parents’ success or (looking at Louise) be held back by their failures. “Makes no difference what they did or didn’t do. You jest stand on yer own two feet.”  Billy urges her to listen and she suddenly looks up, while the doctor counsels them not to be afraid of being disliked, but to focus instead on liking others. Then he leads them in the song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Billy finally tells Julie that he loves her. She doesn’t see or hear him, but her face lights up and she joins in the final chorus, as Louise closes the distance between herself and her classmates and a girl puts an arm around her shoulder. Billy has achieved his goal and departs for heaven. 


The deeply inspiring final song and the hope that shines on both women’s faces during the finale have been bringing audiences to tears for 80 years. It looks like a happy ending. But we and Louise have just been indoctrinated that, when you really love somebody, you can accept their blows like kisses and, if you’ll just hold faithful, you’ll ultimately save them and you’ll know that they love you back. 


Here’s how I think the second to last scene could have been changed to produce a healing message. I'm starting where Julie and Louise stand on the front porch, where Louise is both trying to explain what happened with the strange man whose hit felt like a kiss at the same time that she's asking why her mother is standing stock still, staring at nothing (the space where she briefly glimpsed Billy before he went invisible).


LOUISE:  But is it possible, Mother, fer someone to hit you hard like that - real loud and hard, and not hurt you at all?


JULIE:  (turning to look her in the face). Yes, my dear, it – No! (She turns and looks toward where BILLY is still standing, but invisible to her). Oh Billy!

(Sings)

ROUND AND ROUND WE CIRCLED

BUT WE NEVER GOT NOWHERE

ON A CAROUSEL OF FEARS AND LIES AND TALK.  

DID WE CARE TOO MUCH TO END IT?

OR FEAR TOO MUCH TO CARE?

SHE’S OUR DAUGHTER AND I LOVE HER

THE CIRCLIN’S GOT TO STOP.


(Turning to Louise) Oh my dear, I’ve told you so many fairy stories. I’ve pretended like the truth weren’t truth ‘cause I didn’t want ter hurt you. But it’s not done y’any favors.


LOUISE:  You don’t believe me!


JULIE:  Oh, it’s me that should’n’a bin believed. All those things I told y’about yer father, bein’ the kindest man I ever met, dyin’ in San Francisco. You know they ain’t true, don’t you?


BILLY:  (unheard) Julie!


LOUISE: I know. 


JULIE:  Sometimes, baby, when yer really wantin’ a kiss and you get a hit instead, you tell yerself that’s really what he meant ter give you. There’s even truth in thet. And you think if you ken jest be patient, the day’s comin’ when he's gonna kiss you instead of hittin’. You kinda hev to change the story in yer head, to be patient. 


LOUISE: Yer sayin’ it really hurt – and I don’t remember?


JULIE:  I saw you come in. You were clutchin yer hand, and yer skin – twere red as a lobster. But that’s not how you remember it. I taught you that. It’s time I taught you somethin new – It always hurts dear. The more you wish it were a kiss, the more it hurts. 


(Sings)


WHAT’S THE USE OF WOND’RIN’

IF HE’S SORRY, IF HE CARES?

OR IF HE MEANT TO HURT YOU QUITE SO BAD?

YOU CAN SAY HE DIDN’T MEAN TER

‘CAUSE HE ISN’T REALLY MEAN

HE’S YOUR FELLER AND YOU LOVE HIM—

BUT HE’S SURE THAT HE’S A CAD.


BILLY:  Listen to her Louise. Don’t get stuck with a bum who hurts you!


JULIE:

HIS ACHING HEART IS CALLING

AND YOU WANT TO SOOTHE HIS PAIN

WASH AWAY THE GUILT AND FEAR WITH LOVE.

BUT HOW’R YOU GONNA WASH IT

WHEN IT’S HIM WHO FEELS ASHAMED?

HE’S YOUR FELLER AND YOU LOVE HIM—

THAT’S NEVER BEEN ENOUGH.

HE’S WHO MAKES HIM THE WAY THAT HE IS,

NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.

AND YOU WERE SURE THAT YOU COULD BE HIS—

BUT IT’S NOT JUST UP TO YOU.

SO, WHEN YOU WANT HIS KISSES

AND HE BEATS YOU DOWN INSTEAD,

IT’S TIME TO GATHER UP YOUR HEART AND WALK.

CAUSE EVR’Y TIME HE HURTS YOU,

HE HEAPS COALS ON HIS OWN HEAD.

YOU’RE YOUR GIRL, HE’S NOT YOUR FELLER—

UNTIL HE WALKS THE WALK.

(Embraces Louise, then sees the star on the bench) What’s that?


LOUISE: A star? The man – he tried to give it to me. Said it was from (points toward the sky).


JULIE: (drifts toward the star as LOUISE shrugs and re-enters the house). He’s tryin'. He's always bin tryin'. Oh Billy! You stole a star?  (Picks it up and holds it to her heart).


BILLY: Julie, I’m sorry. Thank you – fer telling her what she needed to know.


(Julie sits taller, as if she's just been unburdened of a heavy weight on her shoulders, kisses the star, then leaves it on the bench and goes inside).


The final scene could then remain as is, except that after telling Julie he loves her, Billy takes the stolen star from his pocket and throws it into the air. Julie and Louise look in it's direction and beam.


What do you think? What message do you think the story imparts now?


 

​Thanks for your support for Summit Stages! If you liked this story, please consider sending it on to a friend.


If you are not already subscribed to my weekly newsletter, I'd be delighted if you'd do so here.


And a deeply, heartfelt thanks to those who've contributed to my tip jar Your support is greatly appreciated!


See you next week when we dive in to the Conditional Love Song!



Recent Posts

See All

4 Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating
Margo
Jan 23
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.

I appreciate the other commenter’s point about the central metaphor of the carousel. Your fix didn’t quite resonate with me because I didn’t buy that Julie would so quickly 180 and reject the narrative she had clung to for so long. I would like the fix to be deeper. I haven’t seen or read The Carousel, but my inclination from your description would be to cut out all the afterlife stuff about Billy and instead have Louise fall in love with an abusive guy and have that line about a slap feeling like a kiss being about him. Julie could then be deeply disturbed and opposed to this relationship—Louise could resist and at some point assert that she knows her…


Like
Replying to

I love your suggestions for a more compelling story that resonates at a deeper level. The only problem is that the musical would no longer be Carousel which is really about Billy's journey, not Julie's. In fact, I'd say the original doesn't have Julie growing at all. I'm hoping the additional edits I've made since you wrote this give a clearer picture of Julie's motivation for rejecting abuse and changing her message to Louise. There are a couple of reasons that I think this can work. First is, the one time we see Billy really wanting to grow is when he sings about his unborn child. His speedy slide into stealing instead of earning an income for his family is…

Like

Terry
Jan 23
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.

Congratulations on your attempt to “fix” Carousel. Your alteration does make for a more satisfying treatment of the disturbing theme of abuse. In doing so, however, it moves even further away from the central metaphor of the story: our inability to change our fate. The carousel goes round and round and round and nothing changes. It’s a bleak view,’for sure, but it’s the theme of the story upon which Carousel was based, one that was apparently too bleak for Broadway, so it was lightened. Carousel’s music is incredible, but its book has always been a bit of a mess— trying to square a never-ending circle.

Edited
Like
Replying to

Thank you Terry! As always, you inspire me to take my writing up a level. You mentioned this central metaphor some months ago, when you first pinged me about Carousel. As I revisit it now, I don't think you can tell a healing story about an abusive relationship without explicitly rejecting the fatalism that is the thematic core of the original story, Liliom. I think you would agree. And Rogers and Hammerstein were walking a thin line just giving Molnár's story a semi-redemptive ending. He'd been approached by multiple others about an adaptation and had refused. But when he watched Oklahoma, he said that if Rogers and Hammerstein wanted to turn his play into a musical, he would let them. So…

Like

© 2024 by Summit Stages. Powered and secured by Wix

bottom of page