Its lyrics provide a timeless impact still felt today, while its simple melodies give singers room to convey deep emotion. “Stand By Me” perfectly shows how a song’s magic can be considered endlessly but never fully explained.
Feeling the song always comes first and leaves the biggest mark on the listener, regardless of their grasp of music’s inner workings or the song’s structure. It’s simple, yet fills a deep well within each of us.
Under the pseudonym Elmo Glick, Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller wrote “Stand By Me.” Pulling inspiration for the name from a spiritual soul song written by Sam Cooke and J.W. Alexander called “Stand By Me Father,” the trio created one of the most famous and widely covered R&B hits of the last sixty-plus years.
Wanting to update a hymn of the same name popularized in the early 1910s by Charles Albert Tindley, King first started writing the song alone, intending to give it to The Drifters in 1960, but they ultimately turned it down.
Shortly thereafter, King was in the studio finishing up the “Spanish Harlem” session earlier than expected. The session’s producers, Leiber and Stoller, asked if he had anything else written, and King sat down at the piano to play the beginning of the song. Jerry and King continued to work on the lyrics and vocal melodies, while Mike Stoller fleshed out the music on piano.
The session musicians were then called back in to record the instrumentation of the song, and the famous string section was arranged later by Stanley Applebaum.
Though there are some differing recollections on who came up with what in the song, King received 50 percent of the writing credit, and Leiber and Stoller split the other 50 percent.
Upon its release, it reached number 1 on the R&B charts and entered the Billboard chart in May 1961, peaking at number 4 by June of the same year. Over the years, it has been re-released, covered, and performed numerous times, earning it a spot as the fourth most-performed song of the 20th century, according to BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.), with an estimated seven million performances by 1999.
62 years later, a group of musicians uploaded their take on a song that arguably couldn’t be improved upon. Music Travel Love, at its core, is made up of two Brothers, Clint and Bob Moffat, and their acoustic guitars, with an ever-changing array of musician friends joining them from song to song.
On “Stand By Me,” The Moffat brothers are joined by Arqam, Donia, Suzan Sadek, and Maya, each taking turns at verses and solos, but also joining together to sing the choruses in a massive harmony. Their version of the song is both stripped down and filled out, with the guitars providing the base melody and percussion building upon it.
Everyone adds to that percussion with a rhythmic spoken word, almost a repeated mantra of the main opening lines, that sits right on top of the guitars. A spattering of piano melody and flutters adds a shimmering feel to the instrumental, as the singers take turns in the spotlight, beginning with Arqan’s huge, soulful baritone voice that immediately grabs and holds our attention.
Halfway through the first verse, starting with the line “and I won’t be afraid,” the Moffat brothers take over, giving us a beautiful example of a blood harmony that feels so natural, they could make up two parts of the same being. The ending of the verse punches into a chorus where all present join in together, and the result is a massive, almost choir-like harmony.
The second verse is taken up first by Donia, seamlessly joined halfway through by Suzan Sadek to finish the first portion of the second verse in harmony. All the while, the rhythmic spoken word performed by all continues the hypnotic droning. This is where Maya takes the last verse that bookends the song. The Yin to Arqam’s Yang in the first verse, Maya delivers a soulful, rich vocal performance that resonates with the listener on a deep level.
The last chorus, just as big as the first, gives each friend space, allowing them to ad-lib gorgeous runs, bringing the song full circle as it slowly descends to a gentle ending that mirrors the song’s opening.
It’s an interesting take on a classic, and one commenter noted that they’ve been listening to the song since its release, and this has become their favorite cover of the song since discovering it on YouTube.
Music Travel Love’s channel is filled with interesting and wonderful covers, like this one, where the brothers collaborate with other musicians from around the world to share in song. Each video features a backdrop as beautiful or more beautiful than the last, providing hours of time to sit, be present, and relaxed, or fully groovin’ in the moment.