"Change the World" is a song written by Tommy Sims, Gordon Kennedy and Wayne Kirkpatrick which was recorded by Eric Clapton with backing by Babyface for the soundtrack of the 1996 film Phenomenon. The song won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year (for the songwriters), as well as Best Male Pop Vocal performance. The song was chosen by the RIAA as one of the Songs of the Century, ranked at #270.

The single peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1996. It also spent 13 weeks at #1 on the adult contemporary chart and remained on that chart for over a year and a half (80 weeks), a feat which was extraordinarily rare at the time. Since then, however, certain songs have remained on the AC chart for extended periods of time, prompting the eventual creation af an Adult Contemporary recurrent chart for songs that have stayed on the chart for many weeks and fallen below a certain threshold.

Although "Change the World" is better known as an unplugged acoustic track, a rare electric performance of the song was featured on Babyface's 1997 live album Babyface MTV Unplugged NYC, with Clapton on co-lead vocals, playing his namesake signature Fender Stratocaster guitar. There was also another electric cover of this track, released the following year, with Nathan East on electric bass.

World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth.

In a philosophical context it may refer to: (1) the whole of the physical Universe, or (2) an ontological world (see world disclosure). In a theological context, world usually refers to the material or the profane sphere, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent or sacred. The "end of the world" refers to scenarios of the final end of human history, often in religious contexts.

World history is commonly understood as spanning the major geopolitical developments of about five millennia, from the first civilizations to the present.

World population is the sum of all human populations at any time; similarly, world economy is the sum of the economies of all societies (all countries), especially in the context of globalization. Terms like world championship, gross world product, world flags etc. also imply the sum or combination of all current-day sovereign states.

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, (born 30 March 1945) is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time.

In the mid 1960s, Clapton departed from the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. In his one-year stay with Mayall, Clapton gained the nickname "Slowhand". Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed Cream, a power trio with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop." For most of the 1970s, Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of J.J. Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped reggae reach a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded by Derek and the Dominos, another band he formed and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded by Cream. A recipient of seventeen Grammy Awards, in 2004 Clapton was awarded a CBE for services to music. In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.