Stand By Me

Contemporary Traces of the Modern Soundtrack

Developed for RMIT Media Arts

Close analysis

1. Silence – a long shot of a cruiser. Gordy (Richard Dreyfuss) sits in the car after having read a newspaper article about his childhood friend Chris getting shot. A slow Muzak-like version of Stand By Me starts softly. There are neither drums nor vocals: it’s the ghost of the original song by Ben E. King. Here it symbolises not a nostalgic yearning for the song, but how the song is remembered.

2. Bobby Day’s Rockin’ Robin appears to play on an unseen radio in the young kids’ cubby house: Gordy (Will Wheaton), Chris (River Phoenix), Vern (Jerry O’Connell) and Teddy (Corey Feldman). Even though the music might be non-diegetic ‘song score’, it references how radio was a sound in acoustic spaces and mental/head spaces of kids inhabiting the depicted world (the small town of Castlerock) in that time. Its use as a ‘song score’ here relates to how the portability of radio in the late 50s/early 60s allowed for soundtracking private spaces – kids’ bedrooms, cars, cubby houses, etc.

3. When Gordy goes into the room of his departed brother Dennis (John Cusack), a soft disembodied melody is heard – sounding like they’re played on wine-glasses, a musical device score composer Jack Nitzsche often used, which has since become a staple of digital keyboard ‘ambient pad’ sounds. It sounds like the memory of a tune, and symbolises how the whole story being told is one of past experiences brought into the present.

4. After Gordy and Chris have been humiliated by Ace (Keiffer Sutherland) and Eyeball, they continue on toward their trip to find the dead body of Ray Brower. As they walk away dejected, the slow Muzak version of Stand By Me plays. The song starts to function narratively like the grown-up Gordy (marked by the sound of Richard Dreyfuss’ voice-over reflections) looking at himself. As he watches himself, this theme is heard.

5. Jerry Le Lewis' Great Balls Of Fire played on car radio as Charlie Billy Ace and Eyeball play mail box base-ball. The song synchs to the anarchic fun time of the older gang, and the hi-octane energy of their rebellious spirit.

6. In the junkyard, Vern mentions “This really is a good time”. The voice-over of grown-up Chris recontextualises what Vern said and meant. The echo of the phrase in grown-up Chris’ present-time memory enables him to reflect on its double-meaning: he interprets the past from the present.

7. Shirley and Lee’s Let The Good Times Roll in the junk-yard: the young gang is having a good time.

8. Gordy picking up provisions at the Quidalicious general store. The store owner reminisces about Gordy’s brother Denny, which sparks Gordy to remember Denny at the family table talking about Denny’s future in college football. The soft ambient melody plays in the background. This meta-melody represents how memory triggering sets off chain-reactions in multiple people. Gordy reminds the store-owner of Denny, which makes Gordy remember Denny, all of which is being remembered by the older Gordy.

9. Slo-mo image of Gordy running away from the junkyard dog: the grown-up Gordy details how he misheard the owner’s command for the dog to “Chopper! Sick’em boy” as “Chopper! Sick balls”.

10. The Monotones' Who Wrote The Book Of Love as the older gang (Cobras) carve tattoos on their arms.

11. The Chordettes’ Lolly Pop plays as the young gang work their way along the train track. Vern and Teddy lip-synch and dance to it, even though they have no radio. The soundtrack ‘sounds’ it, while the kids sing it. Effectively, we hear the grown-up Gordy’s recollection of the moment as well as his acknowledgement of its reference to the song.

12. Buddy Holly’s Everyday plays as the kids reach the rail bridge. Holly’s song – light, tinkling, eternally young and hopeful – is darkened by the knowledge even at the time of his tragic death at the height of his success. That darkness synchs to the overall darkness covering the film’s bright midday sun story as the young gang make their youthful innocent journey to see a dead body of a young kid their age. In a sense, Buddy Holly is symbolic of that body, appearing as a sonic ghost just as the dead Ray Brower functions as a visual ghost for the young kids.

13. Silence – the kids cross the bridge. Hardly any atmosphere is heard, as they are primed listening for the approaching train. We hear the soft rhythmic patter as they carefully walk on the wooden boards. Wide shots frame the bridge and the kids in silence: the sound of a distant eagle is heard. Gordy senses something: he looks for the train and sees nothing. He touches the train tracks, looks around, sees the approaching smoke of the train and screams “Train!”. The loud noise of the approaching train and their screaming opens up the scene into a cacophony of terror as they run for their lives.

14. Nightfall –the kid toast hot dogs: The Del Vikings’ Come Go With Me.

15. The Fleetwood’s Come Softly To Me as the kids tell campfire stories.

16. In the silent night as each kid takes turns on watch (after they have been spooked by the howling of coyotes) a portrait of how they respond to sound: Vern acts out wartime soldier characterizations; Vern is spooked by every sound; Chris hears Gordy mumbling in his sleep.

17. Early morning – Gordy sits on the train track reading his comic in silence. Faint atmosphere of morning birds is heard. Suddenly, a deer enters, not even acknowledging Gordy. Gordy stares at it in silence, marvelling at the moment. The deer crosses the tracks. The silence here – as with the silence in 1 – frames moments of focus, awareness and consciousness. Grown-up Gordy’s voice-over tells how he never told the others about the deer, and that this is the first time – in his voice-over narration – he has never spoken about it since. The silence he experiences in the present by being shocked by reading of Chris’ death opens him up to revealing this memory of another key moment of silence in his past.

18. The Mystics’ Hush-a-Bye plays as they continue along the tracks.

19. The Silhouettes’ Get A Job plays as Ace and Billy play pool and Billy tells Ace about the dead body. Billy simultaneously is fishing with Charlie and tells him about the dead body; the song plays across both scenes.

20. In the forest, all is dark, dank, muddy – the opposite of the sunny scenes as they travelled along the train tracks.

21. The Coasters’ Yackety Yack starts with a close-up of one of the older gang’s engine as the older gang’s two cars race each other.

22. When they see Ray Brower’s body, first there is silence, then a mournful trumpet and strings theme plays, distant and detached. Gordy is most disturbed: Ray Brower’s body reminds him of Denny, and how Gordy didn’t cry at Denny’s funeral, and how his father hates him. He breaks down and cries, consoled by Chris. The silencing of Ray Brower through his accidental death allows for a silence for Gordy to grieve.

23. As the kids journey back across the tracks, the slowed-down version of Stand By Me plays. Grown-up Gordy remembers how they walked in silence, not saying a word. They arrive back at Castlerock and depart from each other – but Gordy and Chris realise that they have grown up and are departing from each other in different ways. Gordy’s whole recollection is based on this silent unspoken realisation of how they have grown up.

24. As Chris and Gordy say goodbye to each, Gordy’s grown-up voice tells of Chris’ accidental death at the fast-food restaurant. Gordy is shown waving goodbye to Chris as Chris walks away; the image of Chris fades like a ghost. Though he disappears in this scene, he has come back to haunt the grown-up Gordy, compelling to write this story of their past. We see a computer screen displaying this last section of voice-over, then we see the following being typed without voice-over: “Although I hadn’t seen him in more than ten years, I know I’ll miss him forever.”

25. Cut to Richard Dreyfuss as adult Gordy at the computer, having just finished the story. He stares at the computer in silence, then types “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” He stands and turns off the computer. The original version of Stand By Me comes on the soundtrack – it is full, both in its arranged version and its presence on the soundtrack. Symbolically it has been welcomed into the soundtrack following the silences, mutings and aural backgroundings which marked young Gordy’s consciousness, coming-of-age, self-reflection, shock and grieving, and which have welled around in Gordy through his life.

Text © Philip Brophy.