"Bless the Beasts and Children" is the theme song to the 1971 eponymous film and was performed by the Carpenters.

Then "Bless The Beasts and Children" had its own run as an A-side charting on the Billboard Hot 100, eventually topping out at number 67.

"Cotton's Dream" was also used as the theme song to the 1973 soap opera, The Young and the Restless, and later "Bless the Beasts and Children" was used when David Hasselhoff's character, Dr. "Snapper" Foster, had to say goodbye to his son in a dramatic 1982 episode of the series.

Barry De Vorzon composed the song at a residence in Lake Arrowhead, California, where he used to spend his weekends, after director Stanley Kramer gave him the screenplay of the film.

At first he wrote a "beautiful melody" and then "loaded the lyric with all the terrible things we're doing to children and animals", but it "did not work".