World Singing Day is teaming up with the World Children’s Choir to create a virtual choir of the 2023 WSD Song-of-the-Year Lean On Me.
We invite all ages to participate in the recording of this video, using the simple and free Easy Virtual Choir website. Recordings are due by October 7, 2023.
“We’re the ones to make the magic And we’ve only just begun. Sing along and just imagine How the world can be as one.” – Ode to Song (WSD 2018 Song of the Year)
Each year for World Singing Day we have at least one song that we invite people to sing together, to promote a sense of global unity. People send in their videos to create global montage videos of people from around the world singing the same song.
The challenge is finding, or writing, a song that people in many different countries can sing easily. What language do you write it in? What musical genre? What should the message be? Then there’s the issue of copyright if you use a song not in the public domain.
One of the most well-known melodies around the world is the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony #9, “Ode to Joy.” Millions of people know the melody but not as many know the German lyrics. What if we changed the lyrics to something more people would be familiar with. And why not take phrases from popular songs and write a coherent lyric that’s in line with the spirit of World Singing Day?
That’s what we did for this year’s WSD Song of the Year, “Ode to Song,” which is a tribute to the power and magic of song. Can you identify the 20 song references?
We invite you to listen, learn, and sing “Ode to Song” with others on, or leading up to, World Singing Day, the third Saturday in October. Film and share it on social media using #worldsingingday and #odetosong.
“Sing along and just imagine how the world can be as one.”
In addition to singing the World Singing Day Theme Song and the Song of the Year, here are song suggestions for sing-along songs in English. As a rule, good sing-along songs are usually in a major key, have repetitive choruses, and have lyrics and melodies that are easy to sing.
A Whole New World (Aladdin)
All Star (Smash Mouth)
American Pie (Don McLean)
Bennie & the Jets (Elton John)
Be Kind (Zak Abel)
Believe (Cher)
Blue Moon (various artists)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel)
Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
Bye Bye Love (Everly Brothers)
Can’t Help Falling In Love (Elvis)
Circle of Life (Lion King)
Closer to Fine (Indigo Girls)
Cold Heart (Elton John and Dua Lipa)
Dancing in the Street (Mick Jagger and David Bowie)
Belgium. It may conjure up thoughts of beer, chocolate and waffles. Maybe the famous cyclist Eddy Merckx, the painter Rubens, the cartoon TinTin, the singer Jacques Brel. Audrey Hepburn was born there. (OK, if you live outside Europe, you may be thinking, “Where exactly is Belgium?” It’s between The Netherlands and France.)
