I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing

By the time this was released as a full song, the melody was very much associated with Coke, so it amounted to free advertising. Most of the commercial is about honey bees, turtle doves and love anyway, so removing the Coke references didn't disrupt the song. The lines: I'd like to buy the world a Coke And keep it company Were altered to: I'd like to hold it in my arms And keep it company

The music was written by the British songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, who around this time also co-wrote the Hollies hit "Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)." The music they used for the commercial was based on something they had already written which they called "True Love And Apple Pie." They worked on the jingle with Backer and Billy Davis, who was the music director assigned to Coke's account. Davis was also a successful songwriter, having co-written some songs for Jackie Wilson. The four of them stayed up all night writing the song, which Davis then produced with The New Seekers.

William Backer came up with the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company" when his plane to London, where he was slated to create the commercial, got diverted to Ireland because of weather. He and his fellow travelers were not happy about this, but when they got together at the airport café for refreshments, Backer noticed their spirits lifted as they commisserated over their shared experience. He also noticed that many of them were drinking Coke, a beverage that crossed cultures. (The full story of how the Coke commercial came together is in Backer's book The Care And Feeding Of Ideas.)