Burt Bacharach and Hal David were a popular songwriting team in the 60's and 70's, who wrote hit after hit, including these two classic songs that were paired thirty year later in 1994 by backup-singer-turned soul legend Luther Vandross. What the World Needs Now hit the charts at #7 with Jackie DeShannon in 1965, and in 1967 Windows of the World hit #32 with Dionne Warwick's rendition of the song.
How wistful to read Hal David's lyrics half a century later.
THE WINDOWS OF THE WORLD
How wistful to read Hal David's lyrics half a century later.
THE WINDOWS OF THE WORLD
Music by Burt Bacharach, Lyrics by Hal David
The windows of the world are covered with rain,
Where is the sunshine we once knew?
Ev'rybody knows when little children play
They need a sunny day to grow straight and tall.
Let the sun shine through.
The windows of the world are covered with rain,
When will those black skies turn to blue?
Ev'rybody knows when boys grow into men
They start to wonder when their country will call.
Let the sun shine through.
The windows of the world are covered with rain,
What is the whole world coming to?
Ev'rybody knows when men can not be friends
Their quarrel often ends where some have to die.
Let the sun shine through.
The windows of the world are covered with rain,
There must be something we can do.
Ev'rybody knows whenever rain appears
It's really angel tears.How long must they cry?
Let the sun shine through.
WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW
Music by Burt Bacharach, Lyrics by Hal David
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
Till the end of time
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 cornfields and wheatfields
Enough to grow
And there are sunbeams and moonbeams
Enough to shine
So 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
The Windows of the World's Vietnam-era lyrics still resonate, but today we have come to realize that the world needs more mountains and hillsides, oceans and rivers, cornfields and wheatfields. We need a healthy planet, just as much as we need love.
A different perspective that comes out of a growing sense of vulnerability and fragility.
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Seen from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space. |
Astronomer Carl Sagan understood what the world needed, when he helped humanity to get a good look at our little world. In 1990, he requested that Voyager 1 turn its cameras back towards Earth to take the 1990 photo known as "The Pale Blue Dot."
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
This Friday, July 19th, another very special family portrait is scheduled. NASA's Cassini spacecraft, currently orbiting Saturn, is scheduled to take another photo of Earth, and every Earthling can participate.
The photo is scheduled to be snapped on July 19 between 5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT (2127 and 2142 GMT). Earth should be visible as a tiny dot next to Saturn and its rings, with North America and part of the Atlantic Ocean in sunlight at the time.
 In this photo by NASA's Cassini orbiter around Saturn, the planet Earth is visible as the small bright dot. Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA |
"My sincere wish is that people the world over stop what they're doing at the time the Earth picture is taken to revel in the sheer wonder of simply being alive on a pale blue dot of a planet, and to appreciate the ever-widening perspective of ourselves and our world that we have gained from our interplanetary explorations," says Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
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| Blue Marble in the aperture of a camera obscura |
"It will be a day for all the world to celebrate."
Let the love shine through.
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