"ABC" noicon The Jackson 5's "ABC" from ABC
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

"ABC" is a 1970 number-one hit song by The Jackson 5. "ABC" was written with the same design as "I Want You Back", and was first heard on American Bandstand (on the ABC network) in February 1970. "ABC" knocked The Beatles song "Let It Be" out of the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970. "ABC" was also number one on the soul singles chart for four weeks.^[2]

"ABC" was the first single from the second Jackson 5 album, ABC. It is considered one of the Jackson 5's signature songs. It is one of the shortest titles to hit #1; and, it is the first song alphabetically in the list of #1 hits of the Billboard Hot 100.

Charts[link]

Personnel[link]

• Lead vocals by Michael Jackson (age 11), Jermaine Jackson, Tito Jackson, and Jackie Jackson
• Background vocals by Michael Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Tito Jackson, Jackie Jackson, and Marlon Jackson
• Bass guitar by Wilton Felder
• Drums by Gene Pello
• Guitar by David T. Walker, Louis Shelton and Don Peake
• Keyboards by Freddie Perren
• Written and produced by The Corporation: Berry Gordy, Jr., Freddie Perren, Alphonzo Mizell, and Deke Richards

Cover versions and pop culture[link]

• The song was released as downloadable content for the Rock Band videogame series, and is a playable track on Band Hero.
• "ABC" is used on British commercials for Nestle's Aero
• The song is a part of the soundtrack for the Disney Channel Original Series Lizzie McGuire
• The Jacksons' song is also on the teaser for the film Daddy Day Care.
• In 1991, rap group Naughty By Nature sampled the song on their first hit "O.P.P.".^[3]
• In 2003 it was used in the second film in the The Italian Job sequel.
• It was memorably featured in the 2006 film Clerks II.
• In 2008, the song was performed by Westlife on their Back Home Tour.
• In 2008, the song was featured in the movie, College Road Trip.
• In 2009, the song was parodied by The Fringemunks to recap Fringe episode 1.14, "Ability." ^[4]
• In 2011, the series Glee covered this song on episode 3.08, "Hold On to Sixteen".
• In 2011, it was covered by the cast of the "Quest for Zhu" DVD movie and on its official soundtrack^[5]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Overview of ABC All the picture sleeves, Song and remixes to listen
• "ABC" song review from Allmusic website
• "ABC" as listed on the Rock Band song library.

Look up ABC, ABCs, or abc in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

ABC are the first three letters of the Latin alphabet. They may refer to:

Broadcasting media[link]

• American Broadcasting Company, a private US broadcaster
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation, national publicly funded broadcaster of Australia
• ABC Radio, the former name of Cumulus Media Networks, an American radio network (formerly owned by the American Broadcasting Company)
• ABC (Swedish news programme), a regional news programme
• Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, a Japanese commercial television and radio station
• Associated Broadcasting Company, a Philippine television network
• Associated British Corporation, a former British film and television company
• ABC (newspaper), Spanish daily newspaper

Cars[link]

• ABC (1906 automobile), an American car
• ABC (1920 automobile), an English car
• ABC (1922 automobile), a planned American car
• Active Body Control, a type of automobile suspension technology
• ABC Motors, an English manufacturer of aircraft, aero engines and cars

Companies[link]

• ABC Stores (Hawaii), a chain of convenience stores
• ABC Group, a department store
• ABC Learning Centres, an Australian child care business
• Agricultural Bank of China, a bank in the People's Republic of China
• Aerated Bread Company, a former and once famous British bakery and tea-room chain
• Appalachian Brewing Company, an American brewery
• Arab Banking Corporation
• ABC Cinemas, a UK cinema chain
• Anglo Belgian Corporation, diesel engine manufacturer
• Audit Bureau of Circulations, publication circulation auditing companies
  • Audit Bureau of Circulations (India)
  • Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK)
  • Audit Bureau of Circulations (North America)

Computer science[link]

• ABC (computer virus), virus
• ABC (programming language), an imperative general-purpose programming language and programming environment developed at CWI, Netherlands by Leo Geurts, Lambert Meertens, and Steven Pemberton
• Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm, a search algorithm used for optimizing multi-variable and multi-modal numerical functions
• ABC (stream cipher), a stream cipher algorithm
• ABC (Yet Another BitTorrent Client), a free software, open source BitTorrent client based on BitTornado
• ABC, a line of computer models designed by Dataindustrier AB of Sweden
• ABC notation, a language for notating music using the ASCII character set
• Abstract base class, a programming language concept
• Acorn Business Computer, a series of microcomputers announced at the end of 1983 by the British company Acorn Computers
• Alcatel Business Communications, a telecommunications protocol
• Atanasoff–Berry Computer, an early electronic digital computer

Economics[link]

• ABC analysis, an inventory categorization technique
• Activity-based costing, an accounting method

Mathematics[link]

• abc conjecture, a concept in number theory
• ABC formula
• Approximate Bayesian computation, a family of statistical techniques

Medicine and biology[link]

• Abacavir, an antiretroviral drug used to treat HIV/Aids
• ABC (medicine), a mnemonic for "Airway, Breathing, Circulation"
• ABC model of flower development, a genetic model
• Abortion – breast cancer hypothesis, a posited connection between breast cancer and abortion
• Aneurysmal bone cyst, a kind of lesion
• ATP-binding cassette transporter, a transmembrane protein
• ABC strategy for "Abstinence, be faithful, use a condom", a sex education strategy

Motorcycles[link]

• ABC motorcycles

Music[link]

Songs and albums[link]

• ABC (album), a 1970 album by The Jackson 5
  • "ABC" (song), a 1970 song by The Jackson 5
• ABC (Jin album), a 2007 album by Chinese-American rapper Jin. ABC is Jin's fourth overall album, which was released on February 20, 2007
  • "ABC" (Jin song), Jin's first single off his 4th album "ABC" (American-born Chinese)
• "ABC" (Pipettes song)
• Alphabet song, or "the ABC's", a song used to teach children the alphabet
• ABCs (song), the first official single by rapper K'naan on his album Troubadour

Groups[link]

• ABC (band), a UK New Wave band
• Another Bad Creation, an American R&B and rap musical group
• Acid Black Cherry, a Japanese Rock band
• Alien Beat Club, a Danish pop band

Record labels[link]

• ABC Classics, an Australian record label
• ABC Records, an American record label

Other music[link]

• O2 ABC Glasgow, a music venue
• ABC notation, a musical notation language

Organizations and projects[link]

Ornithological[link]

• African Bird Club, a British ornithological charity
• Australian Bird Count, a project of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union

Political[link]

• All Basotho Convention, a political party in Lesotho
• Americans Battling Communism, an anti-communist organization in the United States
• Anarchist Black Cross, an anarchist political support organization
• Anything But Conservative, or ABC campaign, 2008 Canadian federal election political campaign
• Association of British Counties, an advocacy group
• Anti-Bases Campaign, an organisation campaigning to remove foreign military bases and intelligence installations from New Zealand, and to dismantle the Government Communications Security Bureau

Religious[link]

• Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, a Republic of Ireland and a United Kingdom based Christian denomination

Sports[link]

• Amateur Boxing Club (alternate name of Amateur Boxing Association of England), the governing body of amateur boxing clubs in England
• Indianapolis ABCs, a Negro league baseball team that played in the early to mid 1900s

Other organizations and projects[link]

• African Black Coalition, a University of California student organization
• Aircraft Builders Council, a provider of aviation products liability insurance
• American Bowling Congress, now part of the United States Bowling Congress

Places[link]

• ABC nations, a political term referring to Argentina, Brazil and Chile
• ABC Islands (Alaska), a term referring to Admiralty Island, Baranof Island, and Chichagof Island
• ABC islands (Lesser Antilles), a term referring to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao
• ABC Region, an industrial area outside of São Paulo, Brazil
• Academia Británica Cuscatleca (ABC), a school in Santa Tecla, El Salvador
• Altnabreac railway station (National Rail code), in Scotland
• American Bank Center, an arena located in Corpus Christi, Texas

Publications and media organizations[link]

• ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations UK), a circulation-auditing organization in the UK and Ireland
• ABC (newspaper), a Spanish newspaper founded in 1903
• Alphabet book, or ABC book, any of several children's books depicting the alphabet
• America's Best Comics, an imprint of DC Comics
• Audit Bureau of Circulations (North America), a circulation-auditing organization in North America
• Audit Bureau of Circulations (India), a circulation-auditing organization in the India

Technology[link]

• ABC Dry Chemical, a fire extinguishing agent
• ABC weapon or Weapon of mass destruction
• Aerial bundled cable, for power lines
• Automatic Buffer Couplers, railway couplers
• Alice, Bob and Charlie (and variants), a nomenclature convention used in cryptography

Other uses[link]

• ABC Futebol Clube, a football (soccer) club based in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
• Advanced Booking Charter, a kind of air travel
• Air batu campur, also known as ais kacang, a Malaysian dessert
• Alcoholic beverage control state, the American system of state regulation of alcoholic beverage sales
• Alien big cat or phantom cat, a large feline that has been purported to appear in regions outside its indigenous range
• Alphabet, a standardized set of letters
• American-born Chinese, people of Chinese ethnicity born in the USA
• Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope (1883–1963), nicknamed ABC, a British World War II admiral
• Archbishop of Canterbury
• Asian brown cloud A layer of air pollution
• "ABC-DEF-GHI", a song from the television show Sesame Street
• "Always Be Closing", a sales and marketing aphorism that stresses the importance of completing as many possible sales as often as possible. Notably expounded on by the character Blake in the David Mamet-written movie Glengarry Glen Ross

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Three singers-a trio-singing a song while accompanied on a lute played by one of the singers. Das Konzert [The Concert] (c. 1490, Lorenzo Costa).

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. The lyrics (words) of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, though they may be religious verses or free prose.

A song may be for a solo singer, a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the criteria used. One division is between "art songs", "pop songs", and "folk songs". Other common methods of classification are by purpose (sacred vs secular), by style (dance, ballad, Lied, etc.), or by time of origin (Renaissance, Contemporary, etc.).

A song is a piece of music for accompanied or unaccompanied voice or voices or, "the act or art of singing," but the term is generally not used for large vocal forms including opera and oratorio.^[1] However, the term is, "often found in various figurative and transferred sense (e.g. for the lyrical second subject of a sonata...)."^[1] The noun "song" has the same etymological root as the verb "to sing" and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the word to mean "that which is sung" or "a musical composition suggestive of song." The OED also defines the word to mean "a poem" or "the musical phrases uttered by some birds, whales, and insects, typically forming a recognizable and repeated sequence and used chiefly for territorial defence or for attracting mates." ^[2]

Cultural types[link]

Art songs[link]

Art songs are songs created for performance in their own right, usually with piano accompaniment, although they can also have other types of accompaniment such as an orchestra or string quartet, and are always notated. Generally they have an identified author and composer and require voice training for acceptable performance. German-speaking communities use the term art song ("Kunstlied") to distinguish so-called "serious" compositions from folk song ("Volkslied"). The lyrics are often written by a poet or lyricist and the music separately by a composer. Art songs may be more formally complicated than popular or folk songs, though many early Lieder by the likes of Franz Schubert are in simple strophic form. They are often important to national identity.

Art songs feature in many European cultures, including but not limited to: Russian (romancy), German (Lieder), Italian (canzoni), French (mélodies), Scandinavian (sånger), Portuguese (canções), Spanish (canciones). There are also highly regarded British and American art songs in the English language. Cultures outside of Europe that have a classical music tradition, such as India, may or may not feature art songs. The accompaniment of European art songs is considered as an important part of the composition.

The art song of the period in which they originally flowered is often a duet in which the vocalist and accompanist share in interpretive importance. The pieces were most often written to be performed in a home or salon setting, although today the works enjoy popularity as concert pieces. The emergence of poetry during this era was much of what inspired the creation of these pieces by Brahms, Schumann, Schubert and other composers. These composers set poems in their native language. Many works were inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine. Another method would be to write new music for each stanza to create a unique form; this was through-composed form known in German as durchkomponiert. A combination of both of these techniques in a single setting was called a modified strophic form. Often romantic art songs sharing similar elements were grouped as a song cycle.^[3]

Folk songs[link]

Folk songs are songs of often anonymous origin (or are public domain) that are transmitted orally. They are frequently a major aspect of national or cultural identity. Art songs often approach the status of folk songs when people forget who the author was. Folk songs are also frequently transmitted non-orally (that is, as sheet music), especially in the modern era. Folk songs exist in almost every culture.

Popular songs[link]

Modern popular songs are typically distributed as recordings and are played on the radio, though all other mass media that have audio capabilities are involved. Their relative popularity is inferred from commercially significant sales of recordings, ratings of stations and networks that play them, and ticket sales for concerts by the recording artists. A popular song can become a modern folk song when members of the public who learn to sing it from the recorded version teach their version to others. Popular songs may be called pop songs for short, although pop songs or pop music may instead be considered a more commercially popular genre of popular music as a whole.

See also[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Song

• Air (music)
• Animal song: bird song, whale song, zoomusicology
• Aria
• Ballad
• Canticle
• Category:Musical forms
• Hymn
• Instrumental
• Lied
• Madrigal (music)
• Song structure (popular music)
• Vocal music
• Theme song
• Poem and song
• Singing

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Marcello Sorce Keller (1984), "The Problem of Classification in Folksong Research: a Short History", Folklore, XCV, no. 1, 100- 104.