First, take a friend and sing it out loud:

Release:

“Stand by Me” is a song originally performed in 1961 by American singer-songwriter Ben E. King and written by King, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller. According to King, the title is derived from, and was inspired by the early 20th-century gospel hymn “Stand by Me” by Charles Albert Tindley. This hymn was based around the psalm, “will not we fear, though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”

The song was not released on an album until it had been out as a single for two years.

History and production:

King had no intention of recording the song himself. He had written it for “the Drifters”, who passed on recording it. After King finished recording a song in 1960, he had some studio time left over. The session’s producers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, asked if he had any more songs. King played it on the piano for them. They liked it and called the studio musicians back in to record it.

Eventually, in the year of king’s death, the 2015 line up of the Drifters recorded this song in tribute.

The success:

King’s record went to number 1 on the R&B charts and was a Top Ten hit on the US charts twice.

The song was ranked 122nd on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1999, BMI named it as the fourth most-performed song of the 20th century, with about seven million performances.

In 2012, the song’s royalties was estimated to have topped $22.8 million (£17 million), making it the sixth highest-earning song as of its era. 50% of the royalties were paid to King.

Smooth Radio in February 2019 called it “one of the best love songs of the 1960s”.

Other appearances:

The song was featured on the soundtrack of the 1986 film “Stand by Me”, and a corresponding music video.

It was also featured in a 1987 European commercial of Levi’s 501 jeans, contributing to greater success in Europe: The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in 1987 thanks to the jeans commercial, and originally reaching number 27 on its first UK release.

so what is the magic of this song ?

As we talked in class with Mel, the song uses a version of the common chord progression now called the “50s progression”, which has been called the “‘Stand by Me changes” after the song.

In these genres, chord progressions are the defining feature on which melody and rhythm are built.

The combination of those chords sounds so good to the audience thanks to the harmony they made by combining them together. Therefor this song has touched a lot of people and was such a success for so many years.

Covers

There have been over 400 recorded versions of the song, performed by many artists, notably Otis Redding, John Lennon, Florence and the Machine, and a lot more…
A-League club Melbourne Victory FC play this song before home matches, while fans raise their scarves above their heads and sing the lyrics.

Here is the famous cover by John Lennon who recorded it for his 1975 album “Rock ‘n’ Roll”:

The personnal reason for choosing this song:

As I wrote before, the song has it’s honorable place for a long time becouse of it’s melody.

As a dancer for almost 20 years, my duty is to help the audience “see” the music. I believe its my job to present the song with his lyrics and melody in the best way to make the people feel attracted to. So in my opinion, a good dancer is someone who can make the people hear new beats they haven’t heard before by using his body.

Perfect example for that is these two dancers who helped me “see” the music when I first saw them few years ago:

Hope you enjoyed, and here is different and uniqe version by the amazing “Florence + The Machine”: