“So darlin’, darlin’, stand by me”

The song “Stand By Me” was the first performed by Ben E. King at 1961. The song was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and the singer, Ben E King, himself. There have been over 400 recorded versions of the song by many famous singers and it made the song “IMMORTAL”.

King explained the inspiration for the name of the song was a title of a spiritual song that was named “Stand by Me Father,” of  the Soul Stirrers and Johnnie Taylor.

In Mel’s course “Popular Music of the Twentieth Century” at Tel Aviv University, we tried to identify what was the element that makes ordinary songs eternal and came to some conclusions.

The theory states that some of the criteria that make a song timeless are:

Emotion- you can relate to the emotion in the song

Passion- what drives and motivates the song?

Honesty and authenticity- the song feels real and without any lie

And, the most important, the story- what the song tells us? What the singer shows us? And what do we understand?

In this work I’ll check if the song “Stand By Me” meets some of these criteria

Broad concensus

Many people liked this song and it gained big success.

For example, in 2012, its royalties were estimated to have topped $22.8 million, making it the sixth highest-earning song as of its era.

More than 400 artists recorded this song after its originally was performed, such as John Lennon, Florence and the Machine, 4 the Cause and Tracy Chapman.

Dancing

The song and the melody are easy so many professionals dancers and even regular people danced to this song-

Emotion

The song is romantic and talking about a person who wants to stay with their lover or someone they love. The genre of the song is soul music, which feels sometimes like you’re being caressed…

The emotion is wishful and desired for the public so they can relate to the song.

Honesty and authenticity

While listening to this song, I can feel the love and softness in Ben’s E. King voice, it was quiet and expressed love and desire to his lover to stay with him. I asked some other people and their answers were quite simillar, so I can infer that many other people liked this song because they felt the honesty and authenticity in it.

And most important, the STORY

In one word, LOVE, like I explained earlier, the love is the main theme of the song.

The song talks about staying with your lover and the audience of the song can take this song and relate in different ways.

The song was featured on a soundtrack of the movie “Stand By Me”. The song played an important part because it made both the movie and the song even more famous, and eventually IMMORTAL.

In conclusion, the song “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King meets some of the criteria that makes the song IMMORTAL.