Songfacts®:

• In this unifying ballad, Barry Manilow shares how it takes just one voice to speak up and inspire solidarity for positive change. According to Manilow, the song came to him in a dream: "It woke me up and I croaked it into my cassette recorder and then went back to sleep. When I woke up and played it back, there it was. A whole song. Amazing."
• All the background voices are actually sung by Barry Manilow. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Ariel - Rehovot, Israel, for above 2
• This is the title track of Manilow's sixth studio album. Its most successful single was "Ships," a cover of a fatherly ballad by British musician Ian Hunter that peaked at #9 on the Hot 100 and #4 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
• "One Voice" was prominently featured on the British TV series Only Fools And Horses. In the 1993 episode "Fatal Extraction," lead character Del Boy sings the tune in a drunken stupor and causes a riot.
• Manilow established himself as a soft-rock icon in the '70s, with a string of popular ballads (including his inaugural hit, "Mandy") and million-selling albums. Although One Voice didn't initially sell as much as its predecessors (it went from Gold to Platinum the following year), 1979 was still a fruitful year - he drew big ratings on HBO's Standing Room Only with footage from his sold-out show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles; he starred in The Third Barry Manilow Special on ABC, which garnered two Emmy nominations; his recording of "Ready To Take A Chance Again" from the movie Foul Play was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song; and he produced Dionne Warwick's self-titled comeback album, which was her first album to go Platinum. What a way to close out the decade!
• The a cappella group Straight No Chaser recorded this with Manilow for the 2010 album With A Twist.