I'll Stand by You

"I'll Stand by You" was recorded for Last of the Independents, the sixth studio album by the Pretenders, and produced by Ian Stanley. Chrissie Hynde wrote the ballad with the songwriting team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, and on the BBC program Songwriters Circle she later admitted her embarrassment at having set out to write a hit. She said she felt better about the song after Noel Gallagher remarked that he wished he had written it. In the lyrics, the singer pledges love and faithful assistance to a loved one in times of personal darkness.

Released on April 11, 1994, as the album's second single, the song reached number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 21 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart, and number 10 in the United Kingdom. It charted higher in both the UK and the US than "Night in My Veins", the album's first single. The single also placed in the top 20 in Australia, Belgium, Canada, and Iceland.

The music video was directed by London-based director Zanna, who had previously directed the video for "Night in My Veins". Filmed in an old wooden hut, it shows Hynde caring for a worried, ill man: she mends his clothes, helps him fix a machine, and eventually carries him to a bath tub to wash and nurse him. At the end he leaves the hut, and on the table lies an ace card with a knife stuck through it.