I’D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING (IN PERFECT HARMONY)
“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. The popularity of the jingle led to it being re-recorded in versions 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.(More from Wikipedia)
In the Chris Estey interview, Kim Fowley describes his early show-biz work in his usual name-dropping and self-promoting fashion (not that there is anything wrong with that): “[M]y first major job in the business was working in the publicity, and press, and background music, media, for Doris Day’s production company; and I was the boy genius in the office. The two movies that I worked on were Please Don’t Eat The Daisies and Pillow Talk. I brought Bruce Johnston in as a songwriter, and stayed with him his entire career. He wrote ‘I Want to Teach the World to Sing . . .’, whatever that was, the Barry Manilow classic [‘I Write The Songs’]. And then all those songs for the Beach Boys, I can’t remember all the titles.”
(January 2015/1)
