"If I Ruled the World" is a popular song, composed by Leslie Bricusse and Cyril Ornadel, which was originally from the 1963 West End musical Pickwick (based on Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers). In the context of the stage musical, the song is sung by Samuel Pickwick, when he is mistaken for an election candidate and called on by the crowd to give his manifesto.
The song is usually associated with Sir Harry Secombe, who got the song to No 18 in the UK charts in 1963, but has been performed by other singers, notably Tony Bennett, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Tom Jones and Regina Belle. Bennett originally recorded the song in 1965, and had a number 34 hit with it on the U.S. pop singles charts. Bennett, with Celine Dion, returned to the song on his Grammy-winning 2006 album Duets: An American Classic.
Andy Hallett — the actor best known for playing the part of Lorne ('The Host') in the television series Angel — sang a cover version of the song in that series' final episode. The 1998 UK game show If I Ruled the World was named after the song.
This song was featured in Spring/Summer 2009 on the Vodafone adverts in the UK.
Jamie Cullum also recorded a version for his album The Pursuit, and performed it at his special performance at the Late Night Prom, number Prom 55, of The Proms in London, with The Heritage Ensemble, on Thursday 26 August 2010 between 22:15 and 13.45. As shown on BBC televisions' BBC Four on the following night.
A very recent duet version of the song is to be released by Bradley Williams and Gingi Lahera on their 2012 CD "Personality." http://BradAndGingi.com.
Famous quotes containing the words the world, ruled and/or world:
“Two principles, according to the Settembrinian cosmogony, were in perpetual conflict for possession of the world: force and justice, tyranny and freedom, superstition and knowledge; the law of permanence and the law of change, of ceaseless fermentation issuing in progress. One might call the first the Asiatic, the second the European principle.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Here lieth the worthy warrior
Who never bloodied sword;
Here lieth the noble counsellor,
Who never held his word.
Here lieth his Excellency,
Who ruled all the state;
Here lieth the Earl of Leicester,
Whom all the world did hate.”
—Anonymous. 16th century.
“It is not quite the same when we are seventy-two as when we are twenty-seven; still I am glad of what is left, and wish we might both hold out till the victory we have sought is won, but all the same the victory is coming. In the aftertime the world will be the better for it.”
—Lucy Stone (1818–1893)