I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing
| "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" | |
|---|---|
| Single by The Hillside Singers | |
| from the album I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing | |
| B-side | "I Believed It All" |
| Released | November 1971 |
| Label | Metromedia |
| Writer(s) | |
| Producer(s) | Al Ham |
| "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by The New Seekers | ||||
| from the album We'd Like to Teach the World to Sing | ||||
| B-side | "Boom Town" | |||
| Released | November 1971 | |||
| Length | 2:20 | |||
| Label | Philips | |||
| Writer(s) | Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway, Bill Backer and Billy Davis | |||
| Producer(s) | David Mackay | |||
| The New Seekers singles chronology | ||||
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"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" is a pop song that originated as the jingle "Buy the World a Coke" in the groundbreaking 1971 "Hilltop" television commercial for Coca-Cola. "Buy the World a Coke" was produced by Billy Davis and portrayed a positive message of hope and love, featuring a multicultural collection of teenagers on top of a hill appearing to sing the song. "Buy the World a Coke" repeated "It's the real thing" as Coca-Cola's marketing theme at the time.
The popularity of the jingle led to it being re-recorded by The New Seekers and by The Hillside Singers as a full-length song, dropping references to Coca-Cola. The song became a hit record in the US and the UK.
The idea originally came to Bill Backer, an advertising executive working for McCann Erickson, the agency responsible for Coca-Cola. Backer, Roger Cook and Billy Davis were delayed at Shannon Airport in Ireland. After a forced layover with many hot tempers, they noticed their fellow travelers the next morning were talking and joking while drinking Coca-Cola. Backer wrote the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" on a napkin and shared it with British hit songwriters Cook and Roger Greenaway.
The melody was derived from a previous jingle by Cook and Greenaway, originally called "True Love and Apple Pie". that was recorded in 1971 by Susan Shirley.
The commercial ended with the statement:
"On a hilltop in Italy,
we assembled young people
from all over the world
to bring you the message
from Coca-Cola bottlers
all over the world.
It's the real thing. Coke."
The song became so popular that it was recorded by The New Seekers and by The Hillside Singers as a full-length song—without the mention of Coke—and both versions became huge hits. A version of the song was rerecorded by Susan Shirley and released in 1971. Cook, Greenaway, Backer, and Billy Davis reworked the song and recorded it as a Coca-Cola radio commercial.
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