"You'll Never Know": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"You'll Never Know"

The movie Hello, Frisco, Hello springs from the same plot template as the show Pal Joey that opened three years earlier on Broadway. Both stories involve a young cheap-district entertainer (and eventually club owner) who aspires to climb the ladder to success on the other side of the-tracks. Both men manage this, at least for a while, by hooking up with wealthy heiresses at the expense of the women who really love them. There are, of course, many differences as well, but it is interesting to note that the 1957 movie version of Pal Joey is set in the same two San Francisco neighborhoods as Hello, Frisco, Hello is: The low-brow Barbary Coast and the affluent Knob Hill.

In Hello, Frisco, Hello, the innocent woman whose heart gets broken by the ambitious young man who marries someone else for money, is the girl singer, Trudy Evans (Alice Faye). She is a singer in a struggling group of entertainers that includes the man she loves, Johnny Cornell (John Payne). The movie opens with Trudy on stage playing a young woman talking to her love long distance on the newly invented telephone. Supposedly away on business, he is only on the other side of the set, a visual metaphor in the on-stage sketch for the distance that is delaying what will soon be their romantic reunion. It is also, however, a foreshadow of the distance between between Trudy and Johnny that will develop as their off-stage story unfolds.

The movie's first musical number is the over-the-telephone "Hello, Frisco, Hello," which transitions into Trudy's character singing -- presumably after Johnny's character is off the line -- "You'll Never Know (just how much I miss you)." Although the song is part of the sketch, it is also a reflection of her real, apparently unrequited, feelings for him. Hello, Frisco, Hello (like Pal Joey) is a "backstager," a story about singers, dancers, musicians etc. who are involved with each other on stage as characters is a show and backstage as real people.

[To listen to the soundtrack from the film that includes "Hello, Frisco, Hello" and "You'll Never Know, go to the Cafe Songbook Record/ Video Cabinet, this page]

During the remainder of the film, Johnny works his way up, first as the owner of several honky-tonks, then some higher class clubs, and finally, in connection to his love affair with and marriage to heiress Bernice Croft (Lynn Bari), to becoming owner of the San Francisco opera house. Trudy, of course, is devastated by the marriage, but continues her career by accepting an offer to perform in London where she becomes very successful and rich on her own. When Trudy returns to San Francisco it is just in time to save Johnny, who, having divorced Bernice, is on the brink of financial disaster. She uses both her money and talent to help him with his new show-biz venture back in the old neighborhood -- where they both belong.

Trudy sings "You'll Never Know" twice more. Closure is achieved when it is sung during the finale, performed as a duet, recalling the duet that opened the movie, now foreshadowing the couple's future together: successful on-stage and in love off-stage.

Harry Warren and Mack Gordon wrote only one song for Hello, Frisco, Hello, but it was good enough to outshine the multiple turn-of-the-century period numbers, as delightful as they are, that are performed throughout the film. It was also good enough to win the Academy Award for best original song for 1943.

One factor that separated "You'll Never Know" from the film's other songs was that even though it was sung by performers on a stage -- an artificial setting -- its lyric was integratedinto the off-stage part of the story.

Darling I'm so blue without you, I think about you the live-long day. When you ask me if I'm lonely, then I have only this to say; You'll never know just how much I miss you, You'll never know just how much I care.

The film barely references World War II, which was raging while the movie was being made, as well as after its release. (One of the intentions of the film makers was undoubtedly to take the audience's minds off the war -- a common objective in movies made during the early forties.) In any case, such a reference would have been difficult because of the movie's 1890's setting. Nevertheless, The last production number features a chorus of sailors and sailorettes on a battleship, a clear a reminder to contemporary audiences of the the reality from which this film was helping them to escape.

Warren and Gordon were mindful of the war also. Tony Thomas writes, "You'll Never Know" was no ordinary song. It was instantly popular and within a few months became almost an anthem of the Second World War." Thomas quotes Warren talking about his best selling song (for sheet music) of all time:

The song was a problem to write because it had to serve two purposes. It had to fit into the period setting and sound like an old ballad, and yet we [he and Mack Gordon] wanted to write a song that would express the feelings of all the war's separated lovers. Luckily we came up with something that managed to do just that. We didn't think too much about it until we happened to play it at a party and people immediately started to listen and sing it. It had that certain "something" we all strive for. ( Thomas. pp. 193-195 ) .

Philip Furia and Michael Lasser find it curious that Warren got his inspiration for the song from a military source. They quote Warren saying to a friend:

You know my big Academy Award song, "You'll Never Know"? Well, it wasn't entirely original -- I did a little steal on that one. Songwriters always borrow a few bars here and there. I don't know how the hell it came to me but I was thinking about the notes in a bugle call and dammit if it wasn't just what I wanted go get "You'll Never Know" started. (America's Songs, p. 191)

Tony Thomas's contention that "You'll Never Know" turned out to be "almost an anthem of the Second World War," is supported by the use of the song in the 1944 movie Four Jills and a Jeep, (starring Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, and Mitzi Mayfair as themselves, re-enacting their USO tour of Europe and North Africa earlier in the war). It is again sung by Alice Faye, in a cameo appearance playing herself, sending the song to the boys overseas.

Alice Faye sings "You'll Never Know"
(The recording is from the soundtrack of the 1944 movie,
Four Jills in a Jeep.

Dick Haymes:
(Decca #18556), first charted 7/10/43, remained on charts for 18 weeks peaking at number 1 and remaining first for 7 weeks.

Gary Marmorstein compares two of Harry Warren's writing partners, Al Dubin who wrote with Warren at Warner's until personal problems forced the lyricist out of the picture, and Mack Gordon who was paired with Warren upon the composer's arrival at Twentieth Century Fox in 1940:

Gordon's lyrics were less propulsive than Dubin's and a touch more poetic. Where Dubin rhymed for dance, Gordon rhymed for emotional expressiveness. Dubin's words evoked the American streets, the more urban the better, where romance was sex and sex was bawdy; Gordon's words evoked a more interior and tender locale, even when actual places like Chattanooga or Kalamazoo were par of the scheme. Gordon's most characteristic lyrics--to Warren's tunes, anyway--stated a romantic or pre-romantic condition in the first line or two, then amplified that condition through the balance of the song: " I Know Why (And So Do You) "; "You'll Never Know (How Much I Care)"; " The More I See You (The More I Want You) "; and so on. Other lyricists listened and learned. Sammy Cahn , hardly prone to praise his rivals, said, "I found the work of Mack Gordon very attractive to my ear." Of course Harry Warren's music helped make it attractive. ( Marmorstein, pp. 216-217 )

Philip Furia is also ambivalent about Gordon's words. He cites "You'll Never Know"as "an open invitation to sentimentality" which is then counteracted by "hard-edged vernacular phrases" producing a comic effect:

After allowing his ardent lover to pledge love eternal, he shifts to an exasperated defensiveness; you ought to know, for haven't I told you so-- Then, as Warren's melody takes a surprising leap, this romantic pledge sounds more like a parental scolding: "--a million or more times?" By the end of the song even the sentimental title phrase is undercut with a street taunt--"you'll never know--if you don't know now." ( Furia, Poets of Tin Pan Alley , p. 242 )

By the time Furia joins Michael Lasser in their book America's Songs, Gordon receives a warmer reception. They still point out the weakness deriving from the lack concrete imagery; nevertheless, Furia and Lasser find "You'll Never Know" if still sentimental "convincing despite the abstraction of the lyric. If it's weakness is a lack of imagery and the absence of a narrative it becomes "persuasive through a combination of hushed romanticism in the melody and whispered passion in the words:

If there is some other way to prove that I love you, I swear I don't now how."

This led at the time of its original popularity to "a sustained tone of private longing" that created a poignant response during the war, especially in women.

Millions of couples were separated and those remaining at home to pray for their loved ones' safe return, take jobs in war plants, and buy the recordings were women. "You'll Never Know" spoke what they felt: "You went away and my heart went with you" ( Furia and Lasser, p. 191 ) .

Click here to read the lyrics for "You'll Never Know" as sung by Frank Sinatra on various albums including The Columbia Years 1943-1951, Vol 1. Sinatra does not sing the verse, but it is included at the above link, where it is called the "intro."

The lyrics (with the music) as originally published can be found in Tony Thomas (with forward by Bing Crosby) Harry Warren and the Hollywood Musical, Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1975

• Rosemary Clooney (1983): SwingCla
• Dick Haymes: ogrotoxico
• Frank Sinatra: tommy194070
• Barbra Streisand - "You'll Never Know" (1955): StreisandTribute
• Barbra Streisand - "Papa Can You Hear Me?" / "You'll Never Know" (2000): streisandworld
• Dave Brubeck: WiseMonkey568

Notes

• Other songs written for Hello, Frisco, Hello currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook : none
• For a complete listing of songs used in this movie, see IMDB soundtrack .
• "You'll Never Know" on the charts:
• Frank Sinatra: (Columbia): first charted 7/24/43, remained on charts for 16 weeks peaking at number 2.
• Willie Kelly & His Orchestra: (Hit Records #7046): first charted 6/12/43, remained on charts for 5 weeks peaking at number #6.
• Rosemary Clooney: (Columbia #39905): first charted 1/10/53, remained on charts for 2 weeks peaking at number 18.
• Source: Joel Whitburn, Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music , 1986
• Tony Thomas (with forward by Bing Crosby) Harry Warren and the Hollywood Musical , Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1975
• Four Jills In A Jeep
• Gary Marmorstein Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900-1975 , New York: Schirmer Books, 1997
• Presumably lovers don't have to be separated by war to continue to respond to the feelings expressed in "You'll Never Know."
• Sheet Music for "You'll Never Know" 1943
• You can also listen to the verse on the following recordings on this page:
• Sue Raney, on her 2012 recording, sings the verse accompanied by Alan Broadbent from their 2012 album Listen Here

Cite this page: "You'll Never Know": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/x-y-z/youll_never_know.html