"I'll Walk Alone" is a 1944 popular

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 with music by Jule Styne

Jule Styne

Jule Styne was a British-born American songwriter especially famous for a series of Broadway musicals, which included several very well known and frequently revived shows.-Early life:...

 and lyrics by Sammy Cahn

Sammy Cahn

Sammy Cahn was an American lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area...

. The song, like others that came out during the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 years such as "Till Then

Till Then (1944 song)

"Till Then" is a popular song written by Eddie Seiler, Sol Marcus, and Guy Wood and published in 1944.The song was a plea to his sweetheart to wait for him until he could get back home...

," reflects the enforced separation of couples caused by the war. While "Till Then" is written from the point of view of the soldier wanting his lover to wait for him, "I'll Walk Alone" is written from the point of view of the stay-at-home lover, promising to be true.

Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

 made the best-known version of this song, recording it twice. She first introduced it in the Universal Studios

Universal Studios

Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 film Follow the Boys

Follow the Boys

Follow the Boys , also known as Three Cheers for the Boys, is a musical film made by Universal Pictures as an all-star cast morale booster to entertain the troops abroad and the civilians at home. The film was directed by A. Edward "Eddie" Sutherland and produced by Charles K. Feldman...

(1944) and taking it to the top of the charts (her first #1 hit) for four weeks and reaching number ten on The Harlem Hit Parade in 1944. Shore later recorded the song in the early 1960s. Martha Tilton

Martha Tilton

Martha Tilton was an American popular singer, best-known for her 1939 recording of "And the Angels Sing" with Benny Goodman. She was sometimes introduced as The Liltin' Miss Tilton.Tilton and her family lived in Texas and Kansas, relocating to Los Angeles when she was seven years old...

 also fared well, placing the song in the Billboard Top Ten

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

. Oddly, when the song was revived in the 1950s, it was often done by male singers, with a very popular version being done by Don Cornell

Don Cornell

Don Cornell was an American singer prominent mainly in the 1940s and 1950s noted for his smooth but robust baritone voice....

 (1952 top ten).

Oddly, teen idol Ricky Nelson

Ricky Nelson

Eric Hilliard Nelson , better known as Ricky Nelson or Rick Nelson, was an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, and actor...

 recorded a version for his album Ricky Nelson

Ricky Nelson (album)

Ricky Nelson is the second album by teen idol Ricky Nelson, released in 1958. The album charted in the Top 10 on the Billboard album charts, and has since been re-issued on iTunes.-Musical content:...

(1958).

For the film, Flags of Our Fathers

Flags of Our Fathers (film)

is a 2006 American war film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman who were involved...

, director Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

sings his version of the song on the soundtrack.