Most People Forget Wynonna Judd Was the First To Sing This Eric Clapton Hit

In 1996, Eric Clapton had a big hit with “Change The World”. Written by Gordon Kennedy, Tommy Sims, and Wayne Kirkpatrick, “Change The World” is part of the soundtrack for Phenomenon, a film also out in 1996 starring John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, and Forest Whitaker.

A No. 1 hit for Clapton, it remains one of his most popular songs today. But most people forget that Clapton isn’t the first artist to record “Change The World”. Before Clapton recorded his version, it was first recorded by Wynonna Judd. Judd’s version is on Revelations, her third studio album. Judd’s version never became a single.

The inspirational song says in part, “If I could reach the stars / Pull one down for you / Shine it on my heart / So you could see the truth / That this love I have inside / Is everything it seems / But for now I find / It’s only in my dreams / And I can change the world / I will be the sunlight in your universe / You would think my love was really something good / Baby, if I could change the world.”

The Story Behind “Change The World” by Wynonna Judd and Eric Clapton

Surprisingly, “Change The World” was written five years before both Judd and Clapton recorded the song. Even more interesting, the writers wrote it hoping to get a record deal, which did not happen.

“When they passed on us, we walked away saying that we failed,” Kennedy tells American Songwriter. “Then, when Wynonna cut it, we were told for two and a half years before her album finally came out that it would be a single. Her label put out three singles, none of which were ours. … We walked away again saying we had failed.”

Neither Kennedy nor the other writers could have imagined how “Change The World” would change their own lives, years later.

“Five years after the song idea was introduced, four years after the demo was done, Clapton recorded it. And it spent 13 weeks at No. 1 and a record 81 consecutive weeks in the Top 20 AC charts in Billboard,” Kennedy says. “And it was the Grammys’ Song Of The Year.”

Kennedy credits Kirkpatrick with making “Change The World” so sentimental.

“The original title from Tommy might have been meant to be a little more of a social consciousness type thing. [But] it was Wayne’s idea to make it into a love song,” Kennedy shares. “Once that was established, it was mostly just finding those phrases that sounded like the grandiose things we wish we could do to demonstrate love.”

(Photo by Stefan Rousseau – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

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