The ubiquitous power ballad “I’ll Stand By You” by Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders is the ultimate cinematic red velvet curtain dropping finale. It has that feeling of reunion, reconciliation, reconnection, and recommitment — an ultra postlude that plays out after a decisive and climactic battle against antagonistic forces. The chords and chorus take on a life that is all their own, with Hynde’s lyrics that zoom in with the soft focus on the weathered, but not defeated, huddled and shook loverly protagonists. Vows are exchanged and renewed as the story arc becomes complete while the villain’s factory spectacularly burns in the background as our heroes’ emotive faces are illuminated by the red, yellow and blue lights from the surrounding vehicles of first responders, onlookers and news reporters. Feelings are expressed in earnest; the pain, the hurt, anger and obfuscated intentions as the world smolders in soot laden billows of pluming smoke as the titular refrain alliterates a strengthened sense of resolve and a camaraderie unlike any other.

Enter Emily Lacy & Soft Sailors with their take on the immortal beloved ballad “I’ll Stand By You”. Beginning with Emily’s isolated vocal, treated effects are slowly applied as the track moves toward a minimalist electro take on the chorus. Transformed into a duet between Lacy and Soft Sailors’ own Geoff Geis, their voices echo out of the darkness like lost phantasms searching for that shared astral plane of equal ground. The raw and personal qualities of the original are brought out in expressively sparse and intimate ways that home production especially lends itself to in the spirit of the best collaborative bedroom chamber pop. Emily & Geoff creatively encompass the incomprehensible storm that we have witnessed in the wake of our world becoming shattered into millions of pieces, the traumas and grief residing in the wounds of the heart and soul to the latent sections of the unconscious. The mix resounds with the isolated sting of our lives locked down into the house arrest of quarantine, where the cavalcade of emotion and pent up perspectives bubble over in Hynde’s heart wrought lyrics that burn bright with a resolute volition to overcome the menacing nightmares from our darkest hours.

Their collaborative rendition takes on a new meaning of new hope, new paths forward, new tiers of living and new connective ways of seeing, hearing and loving one another fully beyond the extents of our own solitary selves. Lacy & Geis push forward out of the world’s wasteland of eternal weeping, gnashing of teeth and the unbearable consumption of inexplicable grief for an echelon of dedication that stands taller than the asphalt realm’s towering ziggurats of fallible hubris (forever destined to be eventually toppled and leveled by the cyclical nature of human folly and near sighted ambitions). The two uproot the shallow lands of infinite sorrow for a statement of intimate togetherness that rises higher than the mystic spheres of celestial places, charted galaxies and cosmic palaces for new dimensions and manifestations of a love supreme.

Geoff Geis of Soft Sailors provided the following reflections on the process of adapting The Pretenders’ “I’ll Stand By You” with Emily Lacy:

As 2020 closed in around all of us last spring, I found myself in the fortunate position of living a couple doors away from Emily Lacy, a tremendously talented musician I’ve known for more than a decade and a half. Emily is a folk singer — her version of Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me” might be the best one that exists — and she’s also adept at using looping pedals to create immersive, meditative vocal soundscapes.

Last year, maybe a month before the pandemic, Emily moved into the same quadplex apartment building as me. When everything shut down, I became deeply grateful to be in close proximity to such a creative force. For a couple of months, she livestreamed her daily musical practice sessions, which were a combination of vocal exercises along with explorations of songs she was learning. Among those was The Pretenders’ “I’ll Stand By You,” a song I’d forgotten from my earliest days of watching MTV but which resonated deeply in the present tense. As I studied the song along with Emily, I became enamored of the song’s structure (the key change… my god) and decided that we should record a cover together.

Even though we lived just a few feet away from each other, due to Covid precautions we recorded ourselves separately. She recorded all of her vocals by herself over a basic MIDI version I gave her of the backing track and once she was done with that I built the arrangement around her by adding beats, guitars, an electric organ and eventually my own voice. It was a fun reversal of the normal recording process, although I had a hard time deciding when it was finished.

Learn more about the multidisciplinary crafts of Emily Lacy here and listen to more from Soft Sailors via Bandcamp.