"Bless the Beasts and Children" is the theme song to the 1971 eponymous film and was performed by The Carpenters. It was featured on the B-side to their hit, "Superstar". The B-side charted on the Billboard Hot 100, eventually topping out at #67. In order to promote it, The Carpenters performed it on their television series, Make Your Own Kind of Music as "F" for "Film Music". It was nominated for a 1972 Academy Award for Best Song, but it lost to Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft".

The original soundtrack included two different versions of "Bless the Beasts and Children", the other being an orchestral instrumental arrangement by composers Barry DeVorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr., and the original "Nadia's Theme", which was listed as "Cotton's Dream". "Cotton's Dream" was also used as the theme song to the 1973 soap opera, The Young and the Restless, and later "Bless the Beasts and Children" was used when David Hasselhoff's character, Dr. "Snapper" Foster, had to say goodbye to his son in a powerful 1982 episode of the series.

The song was originally released on the original soundtrack, and a slightly different version was released on the Carpenters' 1972 LP, A Song for You on June 13, 1972. The original soundtrack had a vibraphone playing the melody in the introduction, while the A Song for You version, released on the single, contained an oboe stating the melody. The two versions (soundtrack and album versions) faded out toward the end, but in 1985, Richard Carpenter re-mixed the song so it does not fade out in the end. He also added a harder bass-line.

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