"Stand By Me"

Let's see if I can remember how to do this.



I hope that worked. It's been a while, a long while, since I've tried to share a video with you guys, but I figured that this video was worth sharing for two reasons. First, Dahlia Row, the group that's performing in this video, is incredible and they deserve far more subscribers than they have. If you liked this song, check out some of their other songs as well. Second, when I heard this song, I immediately began to see spiritual messages in it.

The way I interpreted this song, the male singer is praying, partly to express his faith and partly to seek comfort during a time of trial. In my interpretation, his wife has died, and he is praying for his wife's spirit to stay with him to give him the comfort and support he needs to go on living without her.

The wife, in her part, expresses her faith that, even if the world falls apart, that won't be too tragic as long as her husband stays worthy enough to join her in heaven. She recognizes that mortal life is fleeting and that this world won't last forever - it was never meant to. This world was just meant to serve as a vehicle by which people can come together and inherit the Celestial Kingdom. As long as it does that, it doesn't matter what happens to the earth afterwards.

It was the double meaning of "stand by me" that convinced me to blog about this. When the male singer sings it, I think he means for a comforting spirit to stand by him by strengthening him and helping him get through life, but when the female singer sings it, I think she means for him to stay worthy to stand by her in the Celestial Kingdom.

Unfortunately, my interpretation falls apart about two-and-a-half minutes into the video, when the male singer sings "Whenever you're in trouble, won't you stand by me." In my opinion, and to make my interpretation work, it should have been the female singer who sang that line.

But if we can overlook or mentally misattribute that line, this song can convey this powerful message: The circumstances of this life don't matter as long as we maintain a strong, close relationship with the Spirit. No matter what happens, things will work out, so long and we stand by the the Spirit and the Spirit stands by us. To make this happen, we need to be righteous. That's how we can keep close to the Holy Spirit, and thus, how we can keep the Holy Spirit close to us.