The song ‘Count on Me Singapore’ was, in fact, written by Hugh Harrison who was working for the McCann-Erickson advertising agency in the 80s. McCann-Erickson was commissioned by the then Ministry of Culture of Singapore to come up with a campaign for the 25th anniversary of self-governance of Singapore in 1984.
Mr Harrison told the media in 2013 that after he wrote the first song, ‘Stand Up For Singapore’, which was a hit among Singaporeans, he left for a job in Hong Kong. While there, he got word that the Singapore government wanted a new song “that was directed at the country’s youth”.
He said, “On the plane from Hong Kong to Singapore, I had a vision of young people standing together resolutely shouting to their leaders ‘You can count on us!’” And so ‘Count On Me Singapore’ was then written over a weekend, he recalled. He went on to write his third Singapore national song, ‘We Are Singapore’.
When Mendoza in India started claiming that he was the one who has written the song, netizens began to inform Mr Harrison about it on his YouTube channel.
Today, Mr Harrison informed everyone on his YouTube channel that he has written to both Mendoza and the executive of Pauline Communications in Mumbai requesting that “certain actions be taken to address Mr Mendoza’s false claims to be the original creator of this song”.
More at https://tinyurI.com/3ej2dw8r