Fifty years after WAR first released their anthemic call for unity, Playing For Change has assembled musicians from across the globe to honor the milestone with a new ‘Song Around The World’ performance of ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends.’
A Half-Century Anthem Gets a Global Stage
WAR’s ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends’ originally appeared on the band’s 1975 album of the same name, becoming one of the most enduring expressions of cross-cultural solidarity in popular music history. The track reached widespread radio play and was later re-released as a single, cementing WAR’s reputation as one of the defining voices of the peace and unity movement in American music. Playing For Change, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit and media organization renowned for connecting musicians across continents, partnered with WAR and a wide roster of collaborating artists to mark the 50th anniversary of this landmark recording.
The ‘Song Around The World’ format — Playing For Change’s signature production method — captures individual musicians performing in their home countries and locations, then weaves their contributions into a single seamless recording. The result collapses geographic distance, placing performers from disparate corners of the world into what feels like a single shared session. The chorus of ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends’ — one of rock and soul’s most recognizable refrains — carries particular resonance when voiced by musicians who have never shared a physical stage.
The Song’s Message Amplified Across Continents
The performance builds through the song’s well-known verses, including the pointed lyrical observation that the narrator would ‘kind of like to be the president so I can show you how your money is’ — a line that has retained its satirical edge across five decades. Playing For Change’s production allows each regional voice to carry the melody forward, reinforcing the song’s central argument through the very structure of its creation: that friendship and collaboration require no common language, currency, or border.
Since its founding in 2002, Playing For Change has produced dozens of ‘Song Around The World’ recordings featuring iconic tracks including ‘Stand By Me,’ ‘Don’t Worry,’ and ‘Lean On Me,’ each uniting musicians from nations that rarely share cultural platforms. The organization’s Playing For Change Foundation has also used revenue from these productions to fund music schools in more than 10 countries, directly connecting the recordings’ viral reach to on-the-ground music education for children worldwide.
WAR itself has always embodied the same philosophy that Playing For Change operationalizes. The band, formed in Los Angeles in 1969, drew members from African American, Latino, Scandinavian, and other backgrounds — a multicultural lineup that was exceptional for its era and that gave their music its distinctive, genre-blending texture.
The 50th anniversary collaboration returns ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends’ to exactly the communal spirit WAR intended when they first recorded it — not as a relic of a particular decade, but as a living question posed anew by each generation that picks up an instrument and answers it the same way WAR did: by playing together.
