Girls Aloud are to release their first single since 2012, a new version of their cover of the Pretenders’ I’ll Stand By You with only the vocals of their late bandmate Sarah Harding.
The song, entitled I’ll Stand By You – Sarah’s Version, will raise money for BBC Children in Need. It is being released on 15 November and had its first play on Radio 2 today.
The group’s original version of the song was released in 2004 to benefit the same charity, and reached No 1 in the UK. It was one of four chart-topping singles during their decade-long career since being formed on TV talent show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002, when they became the biggest British girl group since the Spice Girls, earning critical acclaim for their idiosyncratic and adventurous sound.
They split in 2013 and pursued solo careers. In 2020, Harding announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she died in September the following year.
Girls Aloud reformed in 2024 for a 30-date UK and Ireland tour. While amassing archive material for it, they unearthed Harding’s solo performance of I’ll Stand By You.
The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, who co-wrote the original which reached the UK Top 10 in 1994, said: “How wonderful to hear I’ll Stand By You with the lovely vocals of Sarah Harding leading the way for BBC Children in Need.”
Introducing the song on Radio 2, the group’s Nadine Coyle called it “a special celebration of Sarah and also Girls Aloud’s involvement with Children in Need over the years”.
Girls Aloud’s 2024 tour acted in part as a tribute to Harding, using footage and staging to emphasise the importance of their late bandmate. A four-star Guardian review of the opening night in Dublin stated: “Harding continues to be present via the screens that act as large-scale digital scrapbooks of their music videos … the biggest reception is saved for the encore of The Promise, a song with a sparkle that – much like the tenacious and tender group singing it – has never dimmed”.
“We’re not trying to pretend we’re not doing this without her – we feel that loss massively, on stage and in every song that we do,” Kimberley Walsh later told the Guardian. “I really hope that we’ve done a good job of making her presence felt.”