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The Magic of Music: Exploring Jackie DeShannon’s ‘What The World Needs Now’

Introduction

Jackie DeShannon’s iconic song, “What The World Needs Now,” is a timeless classic that has captured the hearts of music lovers for generations. With its soulful melody and profound lyrics, this song continues to resonate with listeners worldwide. In this article, we will delve into the history of this remarkable composition, explore interesting facts about the artist behind it, and even provide you with a video link to enjoy this musical masterpiece.Jackie DeShannon | Spotify

Did You Know?

  • Song Origins: “What The World Needs Now” was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1965. It was initially intended for the Shirelles, but Jackie DeShannon’s rendition became the most famous and enduring version.
  • Jackie DeShannon: Jackie DeShannon, born Sharon Lee Myers, is an American singer-songwriter with a prolific career in the music industry. She not only made her mark as a performer but also as a songwriter, penning hits like “Bette Davis Eyes,” which became a massive success when Kim Carnes recorded it.
  • Chart-Topping Success: Upon its release in 1965, “What The World Needs Now” soared up the charts, reaching the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song’s universal message of love and unity struck a chord with listeners during a turbulent era.
  • Covered by Legends: Over the years, this song has been covered by various artists, including Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, and even Burt Bacharach himself. Its enduring popularity is a testament to its timeless quality.
  • Cultural Impact: “What The World Needs Now” has been featured in numerous films, television shows, and commercials, further cementing its status as a classic that transcends generations.

Jackie De Shannon - Rotten Tomatoes

Video 

Lyrics: What The World Needs Now

What the world needs now is love sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone

Lord we don’t need another mountain
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross
Enough to last ’til the end of time

What the world needs now is love sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone

Lord, we don’t need another meadow
There are corn fields and wheat fields enough to grow
There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine
Oh listen Lord, if you want to know

What the world needs now is love sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone

What the world needs now is love sweet love
What the world needs now is love sweet love
What the world needs now is love sweet love

What the world needs now is love sweet love
What the world needs now is love sweet love

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Elvis Presley’s greatest musical gift was not putting words onto paper. It was hearing something inside a song that other people sometimes could not hear yet. Give him someone else’s melody and lyrics, and he could reshape the emotion through his phrasing, timing and voice until the recording felt intensely personal.

The musicians at RCA Studio B were ready to make records. They were not ready for the way Elvis Presley entered the room. During his celebrated Nashville sessions in 1970, bassist Norbert Putnam remembered Elvis appearing in dramatic fashion—wearing a flowing black cape and carrying an ornate cane. Putnam later recalled the impression that it was almost as though “a prince had walked into the room.”

STONEWALL JACKSON ASKED TOM T. HALL TO WRITE A PRISON SONG, BUT HALL COULD NOT DO IT BECAUSE HE HAD NEVER ACTUALLY BEEN TO PRISON. Tom T. Hall spent his early career turning out the kind of polished, commercial hits that Nashville publishers lived for. He could write what people expected, but he always felt like a fraud. When Stonewall Jackson approached him requesting a prison song—hoping to capture that rugged, authentic aura Johnny Cash was building—Hall hit a wall. He stared at his notepad, realized he had no genuine experience with a cell, and flatly refused to fake it. He was a songwriter, not an actor, and his pride kept him from writing about a world he didn’t know. His wife, Dixie, cut through the tension with a simple reminder: he had indeed spent a week in a county jail in Kentucky after a traffic violation. That memory was not cinematic or heroic. It was just mundane, quiet, and uncomfortable. It involved bad food, the sound of iron bars, and the slow, agonizing crawl of days where the jailer’s wife suddenly started looking like the most beautiful woman on earth. He stopped writing songs that invented generic situations and started reporting the people and places he actually encountered. The result was his first number one hit, written like a man telling a story across a kitchen table. Stonewall Jackson never got his song, but Hall finally found his own voice in the silence of that jail cell.

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Elvis Presley’s greatest musical gift was not putting words onto paper. It was hearing something inside a song that other people sometimes could not hear yet. Give him someone else’s melody and lyrics, and he could reshape the emotion through his phrasing, timing and voice until the recording felt intensely personal.

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The musicians at RCA Studio B were ready to make records. They were not ready for the way Elvis Presley entered the room. During his celebrated Nashville sessions in 1970, bassist Norbert Putnam remembered Elvis appearing in dramatic fashion—wearing a flowing black cape and carrying an ornate cane. Putnam later recalled the impression that it was almost as though “a prince had walked into the room.”

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Lisa Marie Presley grew up in a house visited by some of the most famous people in the world, yet the person who mattered most to her was the man everyone else called the King. To millions, Elvis Presley was an untouchable superstar. To Lisa, he was the father who loved to spoil her, make her laugh and turn ordinary moments at Graceland into childhood adventures.

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BOB DYLAN AND JOHNNY CASH SHATTERED THE WALLS OF NASHVILLE WITHOUT FIRING A SINGLE SHOT. Columbia Studio A sat thick with the smell of stale coffee and cigarette smoke on a February morning in 1969. While the rock world was chasing ghosts in psychedelic haze, Bob Dylan stepped into the epicenter of American country music with a voice that sounded like it had been dragged across gravel. He wasn’t there to challenge the gatekeepers at the Opry; he was there to find the heartbeat of a sound he had loved from afar. Johnny Cash walked through the heavy studio doors, guitar in hand, and for two days, the rigid borders of genre simply dissolved into the air. They didn’t record some grand manifesto to change the industry. Instead, they sat on stools and tore through old folk standards and each other’s deep cuts, letting the microphones capture the loose, unvarnished truth of a collaboration that felt more like a porch gathering than a major label session. Carl Perkins added his own licks to the mix, blending the percussive snap of rock and roll with the lonesome ache of a country ballad. It was a deliberate, quiet rebellion that treated the traditions of both worlds as neighbors rather than strangers. When the tape stopped rolling, they walked away having proved that the lines drawn by radio programmers were mostly make-believe. The Ryman Auditorium stage eventually welcomed a new kind of guest, and the air in Nashville felt lighter, forever changed by two men who knew that music didn’t need permission to belong everywhere at once.