Written by: Bill Backer / Billy Davis / Roger Greenaway / Roger Cook
Produced by: David Mackay
Arranged by: David Mackay
Lead Vocal: Eve Graham
Featured on the album: We'd Like To Teach The World To Sing
Available on the CDs: Beg, Steal Or Borrow, Greatest Hits (Mercury), Greatest Hits (Philips), Perfect Harmony, The Singles, Songbook 1970-74, Ultimate Collection, The Very Best of the New Seekers, We'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (US album), The World of the New Seekers.
Featured in the films: Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and Dark Shadows (2012)
Written by: Peter Doyle
Produced by: David Mackay
Arranged and conducted by: David Mackay
Lead Vocal: Peter Doyle
Featured on the album: New Colours
Available on the CD: Greatest Hits (Mercury), We'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (US album).
Label / Catalogue Number: Polydor 2058 184
Released: 17th December 1971
Highest chart position: 1 (NME chart: 1)
Weeks on chart (Top 50): 21 weeks
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing was the song from the now famous Coke advert that became a multi-million seller and turned the New Seekers into international stars.
And the song itself? Opinion was divided amongst the members of the New Seekers. In an interview with Keith Altham in 1972 Eve Graham admitted that her own choice of song for release as a single had not always been right. "The only single I was absolutely convinced and proven right about was 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing'. I was pushing for that to be released for months." In 2000, interviewed for the BBC's I Love 1972 programme, Lyn Paul said: "I remember thinking I wasn't very keen on it. How wrong can you be?"
The song started life as a Roger Cook / Roger Greenaway composition entitled True Love And Apple Pie. It was recorded with that title by Susan Shirley and released as a single by Columbia Records on 14th May 1971 (DB 8787). Despite promotion on Radio Luxembourg (including a competition to win a weekend trip to Paris) the single sank without a trace.
Bill Backer, a Coca-Cola account executive, liked the tune but loathed the True Love And Apple Pie lyrics. Inspiration for new lyrics came to him when a delayed flight left him stranded at Shannon Airport in Ireland. Seeing the mood of disgruntled passengers lighten as they talked and joked over bottles of Coca-Cola, Backer came up with the line I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke. This became the basis for a new lyric for the True Love And Apple Pie melody, re-written by Backer with the two Rogers and Billy Davis (Davis was a former member of the Four Aims, later to find fame as the Four Tops, who also co-wrote some of Jackie Wilson's hits with Tamla Motown boss Berry Gordy).
The New Seekers first recorded the song as a Coca-Cola commercial with the lyric "I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company" in 1970. Eve Graham recalled the recording sessions for the ad in an interview in 2012: "We did about 12 commercials in the studio... Some were nicer than others but, at first listen, I can’t remember thinking ‘Oh, we should do a full record of this'." (interview with Brian Kelly, Coast FM, 2012).
The ad was initially run as a radio commercial in the USA in 1970. A year later it was re-run as a TV commercial featuring a crowd of young people standing on a hilltop, each holding a Coke bottle and miming to the voices of the New Seekers. The reaction from the public was almost overwhelming. People phoned in to radio stations asking about the song and Coca-Cola received thousands of letters. The company responded to the demand by recording and releasing a full-length version (with the "buy the world a Coke" lyric removed) using a group of session musicians, who were named The Hillside Singers to tie in with the ad. This prompted an immediate reaction from the New Seekers' management. In an interview with Barry Freestone on Hospital Radio Perth in 2018, Eve Graham remembered being in New York, where the New Seekers had been recording with their producer David Mackay, when the group’s manager telephoned from London: "He said a session group have called themselves The Hillside Singers and they have made a full-length version of this and they’ve put it out commercially. Have we got time to do that? Can you fit that in the session? ... The record company turned it round and had it out in a matter of days... a week or something like that." The rest, as they say, is history...
The New Seekers' version of the song overtook The Hillside Singers' version in the Billboard Hot 100 and became a worldwide hit, reaching number 1 in Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK. Had it not been for The Hillside Singers' rival version, it may well have topped the chart in the USA as well.
Interviewed by David Jensen in 2006, Lyn Paul recalled the day it topped the UK singles chart: "We were in our publicist's office, Tony Barrow... We were just waiting and waiting and waiting, and suddenly we were told 'Yes, you've reached number 1'. And the champagne opened - I don't remember leaving the office." (From The Bottom To The Top, Capital Gold, 20th July 2006).
By becoming such a huge hit I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing marked a milestone in the history of advertising - it was the first time that a Coca-Cola advertising jingle had become a pop hit. Since then several songs written as Coca-Cola jingles have become hits - Dottie West, Country Sunshine (1973); Bobby Goldsboro, Hello, Summertime (1974); Robin Beck, First Time (UK number 1, 1988); K'NAAN, Wavin' Flag (2010); Mark Ronson & Katy B, Anywhere In The World (2012) and Jess Glynne, Hold My Hand (UK number 1, 2015).
So, the question is, was I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, as is sometimes claimed, the first advertising jingle of any brand to become a hit single? The answer to that is no. Several jingles had been turned into hits before the New Seekers taught the world to sing but, in only one case, was the jingle and the hit single recorded by the same artist. So, by that definition, I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke was actually the second jingle to achieve chart success. The difference was, the size of the success!
Here are some of the jingles that beat I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke into the charts:
T-Bones' instrumental No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In) was based on music from an Alka-Seltzer commercial. It was a Top 3 hit in the USA in 1966.
Andy Williams' hit Music To Watch Girls By was based on music from a 1966 commercial for Diet Pepsi. The first full-length instrumental version of the jingle was recorded by The Bob Crewe Generation. It was released in December 1966 and peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 the following year. Williams’ vocal recording was released in March 1967 and peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Dis-advantages Of You by a group of studio musicians called The Brass Ring was taken form a jingle advertising Benson & Hedges cigarettes. This commercial was released in 1967 before cigarette commercials were banned from TV and radio in 1971. The single was released in March 1967, peaking at number 36 on the Billboard Top 100. Like the New Seekers, The Brass Ring recorded both the jingle and the hit single.
The Carpenters' hit We’ve Only Just Begun, first released as a single in the USA on 21st August 1970, came from a 1969 commercial for Crocker Bank. It was originally sung on the ad by Paul Williams, who had co-written the song with Roger Nicols.
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing was re-issued on vinyl in the UK in June 1982 with Gentle On My Mind as the B-side (Polydor POSP 453). Polydor Records did not ask the New Seekers to promote the single in any way and it was not a hit the second time around.
Seven years later I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing was re-released in Germany, this time as a three track CD single with its original B-side Boom Town and Never Ending Song Of Love (Philips 888 973-2).
During the decades after its chart success I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing became embedded in popular culture in a way that has not been equalled by any of the New Seekers' other recordings. This is in part due to the Coca-Cola connection, a worldwide brand recognised on every continent, but also because the song’s lyrics coupled with Coke’s iconic hilltop commercial were totemic of their time.
Against a backdrop of apartheid regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa, and conflicts in Biafra, in Cambodia and Vietnam, and in Northern Ireland, there was a growing clamour to "give peace a chance", as John Lennon put it, and to imagine, as he also wrote, "all the people sharing all the world". The lyrics of I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, like John Lennon's songs, gave expression to this desire for peace - "to see the world for once all standing hand in hand" - and the television advert gave visual expression to the idea of a world where people of different races could live together "in perfect harmony."
Will Hodgkinson, the rock critic for The Times described I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing as "a hippy anthem for everyday people". Hodgkinson borrowed part of the song’s title for his book In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop In '70s Britain, which was published in 2022. In Chapter 2 of the book he quoted Marty Kristian of the New Seekers, who described I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing as a "MOR [middle of the road] peace anthem that struck a global chord." Speaking about his book on Boom Radio in 2023 Hodgkinson said: "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing is essentially the spiritual core of the book... It sums up everything I'm trying to say, which is really that a lot of this music which is seen as naff, unstylish, not very serious compared to the greats, is worthy of your attention... A lot of this music is just very, very charming and very clever. These songs are much cleverer than we think." As Lyn Paul put it: "It was a pretty simple song but turned out to be simple - and incredible." (Interview with Lucy Owen, BBC Radio Wales, 29th November 2025).
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing has been used in many television programmes and films, most memorably in the final episode of Mad Men (2015). The television series ended with a scene in which the advertising executive Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, is seen meditating with a group of people gathered on a hilltop. A smile comes to his face as the music of I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke starts to play, implying that the hilltop ad was all his idea.
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing has also been featured in episodes of The Liver Birds (1972) and The Golden Girls (1987); on the soundtracks of the films Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and Dark Shadows (2012); at the end of an episode of Alex Polizzi - The Fixer (2015) and on 9-1-1: Lone Star (2023). It has been used to herald the exit of a contestant from the Big Brother house (2001) and to bid farewell to the Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman (2014).
For Lyn Paul, however, it was the song’s use in an episode of The Golden Girls that most thrilled her. Interviewed by Lucy Owen in 2025, Lyn recalled the first time she saw the episode in which it was featured: "I jumped up, I said to my husband ‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ It was the biggest thrill." (Interview with Lucy Owen, BBC Radio Wales, 29th November 2025).
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing has been recorded and performed by a variety of other artists, notably the rival version by The Hillside Singers, released just before the New Seekers could record their own full-length version. Other covers include versions by Chet Atkins, Ray Conniff, the Edwin Hawkins Singers, Vera Lynn, Mrs. Mills and The Nolans.
In 1994 Noel Gallagher 'borrowed' the melody of I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing for the Oasis song Shakermaker. This led to a court case that ended with a settlement for copyright infringement. In December 1996 a band calling itself No Way Sis released a cover version of I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, performing the song in the style of Oasis. This version spent four weeks in the Top 75 of the UK singles chart, peaking at number 27. Less than six years later, in July 2002, I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing made another brief appearance in the UK singles chart, performed by Demi Holborn, the ten-year-old winner of GMTV's Tot Stars competition. Demi’s version also peaked at number 27 and spent just two weeks in the Top 75.
In 2006 I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing was performed by the cast of The X Factor: Battle Of The Stars and in February 2011 it was used for a world record-breaking sign2sing event, when more than 100,000 children from schools across the UK gathered to simultaneously to sing and sign the words of the New Seekers' hit - a hilltop moment without the hill!
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing has also been selected as a favourite song by at least two guests on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs - the painter Terence Cuneo (1972) and Sir Douglas Bader (1981). In 2018 William Roche (Ken Barlow in Coronation Street) chose I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing by the New Seekers as one his ten ‘Tracks Of My Years’ on the Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2. After playing the record, Ken Bruce commented: "It’s funny after all these years, hearing it again, you realise just how strong a Scottish accent Eve Graham had when she was singing." This is something that Eve herself had commented on, telling DJ Brian Kelly that Coca-Cola had wanted to create a "worldwide commercial" and liked the sound of her voice because it wasn’t "typically American" (interview with Brian Kelly, Coast FM, 2012).
Just as the song has lived on in people's memories, resurfacing in films and on television shows, so too has the commercial from which it came. Coca-Cola used the song from time to time in subsequent advertising campaigns, notably in 1990 when it launched a 'Hilltop Reunion' campaign for the 1990 Superbowl, reuniting some of the original cast members and their children at the same Italian hilltop and recruiting Eve Graham to sing the new version of the ad. In 2022 Coca-Cola's original ad was parodied in an episode of The Simpsons. Episode 7 of Season 34, From Beer To Paternity, featured an ad for Duff beer, which took the line "I’d like to buy the world a Coke" and changed it to "I'd like to pour the world a beer".
In 2000, based upon a poll of Channel 4 viewers, the hilltop ad was ranked 16th amongst the 100 Greatest TV Ads. Five years later a similar programme on ITV placed the ad tenth in its countdown of ITV's Best Ever Ads, while Advertising's Greatest Hits (Channel 4) named it as advertising's greatest hit of all time. In 2020, speaking on his TV show The Sound Of TV, Neil Brand concluded: "Despite starting life as a throw away jingle, the song has become a landmark of the power and persuasion of TV advertising music."
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