The courtly love of 'Stand By Me' yields to pop's pick-up culture

The noble state of matrimony has lost a champion. Ben E King, who died on April 30, created one of the great celebrations of marriage when he co-wrote and sang the 1961 hit "Stand By Me". Dedicated to Betty Nelson, who was to become his wife for 51 years, it is a portrait of a love that will endure even if the sky should fall and the mountains crumble to the sea. "So darling, darling/Stand by me, oh stand by me," King cries, the impassioned voice of spousal devotion.

Romance ruled the US charts in 1961, with the likes of "Blue Moon" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight" joining "Stand By Me" in the nation's jukeboxes. Over 50 years later, the songs have changed but the same theme predominates. Pop music is still the human version of birdsong, the soundtrack of courting. In that respect "Stand By Me" resembles a male finch wooing his lady with a snatch of beautiful music before forming a monogamous pair bond, to use the amorous language of ornithology.

"Stand By Me" has a timeless appeal - but it also belongs to a different world. Based on a spiritual, it is closer to the courtly love of the chivalric age than the present era of "hookup" apps and tweeted "belfies" (which the Financial Times reader would be forgiven for not knowing is a selfie of one's bottom).

In today's climate, one in which users of the dating app Tinder curtly swipe right on their screens to signify approval of a would-be partner, the necessity of romance as a means to an end has shrunk. Pop songs reflect the shift in courtship rituals. Frank expressions of desire proliferate in hits such as rapper Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda", a preposterous exercise in single entendre that should require no further elucidation.

There were bawdy hits back in King's day, too. His co-writers on "Stand By Me", Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, wrote perhaps the most famous, "Hound Dog", which Elvis Presley performed with his gyrating hips on primetime television in 1956. "Unfit for family viewing," huffed host Ed Sullivan. But a vast gulf lies between then and now.

The modern love song treats romance as provisional, not everlasting. The emphasis in "Stand By Me" on longevity, shared by successors such as Al Green's 1971 classic "Let's Stay Together" or Whitney Houston's 1992 cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You", has fallen from favour. The modern love song takes a more provisional view of romance.

Soul singer John Legend's ballad, "All of Me", the second biggest-selling song in the US in 2014, portrays love as a game of chance in which "we're both showing hearts, risking it all". Meanwhile, Sam Smith's Grammy-winning hit "Stay With Me" is sung from the point of view of someone trying to wring emotional sustenance from a one-night stand: "This ain't love, it's clear to see/But darling, stay with me." In a bold twist, the video makes clear the protagonist is a gay man.

When the subject of marriage arises, it carries a hard-headed, transactional focus, as with the imposing list of demands with which teen-pop star Meghan Trainor presents suitors in "Dear Future Husband". Beyonce's 2008 hit "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" treats engagement with the brisk contractual logic of a business deal, which of course it partly is.

How touching that her new song, "Die With You", a till-death-do-us-part number addressed to husband Jay Z, should be available only to paying subscribers of his new streaming service, Tidal.

Today's queen of romantic pop is Taylor Swift, writer of numerous love songs and their corollary, the break-up song. "I'm Only Me When I'm With You" shades into "I Knew You Were Trouble". "Today Was a Fairytale" leads inexorably to "Better Than Revenge". Beaus, cads and jilted boyfriends people her songs like characters in a Regency novel. The action moves too fast for anyone to stand by her for long.

We can rue the disappearance of the gentler, more romantic world represented by "Stand By Me". But it should not be lamented too profusely. When King released his song the median age of first marriage in the US was 20 for women and 23 for men. By 2013 the ages for each had advanced to 27 and 29 respectively.

At the same time the divorce rate has gone down steeply, by 24 per cent since 1979. Marrying later has led to greater marital stability. Pop's profusion of pick-up songs, love songs and break-up songs isn't the polyamorous free-for-all of conservative anxiety. It is the courtship dance of a generation that, correctly, refuses to buy the idea that a marriage contracted at 20 is likely to last for ever.

The writer is the FT's pop critic

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