Holding Hands Around the World
#1011 Hymns—For Home and ChurchLyrics
The Story Behind “Holding Hands Around the World”
Janice Kapp Perry wrote it for Primary's 125th birthday — then heard it sung back to her in Spanish, as a missionary in Chile.
The Broken Ankle That Started It All
Janice Kapp Perry (b. 1938) grew up on an Oregon farm in a musical family and studied composition at BYU — but she didn't become the most beloved Latter-day Saint songwriter of her generation until age 38, when she broke her ankle playing basketball and her ward asked the sidelined athlete to write music for a road show. The songs never stopped: more than a thousand of them, including 'I Love to See the Temple,' 'A Child's Prayer,' and 'We'll Bring the World His Truth.'
Her stated goal when she began was modest: 'I hope someday the Primary children will sing one of my songs.'
A Song for Primary's Birthday
When Primary approached its 125th anniversary, the Primary General Presidency invited Perry to write a song for the celebration — a satellite broadcast that gathered more than 20,000 people in the Conference Center in February 2003, with children's choirs singing in multiple languages around the world. Her song pictured exactly that: the children of the Church, every nation and tongue, holding hands around the world.
The tender postscript: Perry received the invitation while preparing to serve a mission with her husband in Santiago, Chile — and heard the anniversary broadcast there, in Spanish, as her own song circled the globe and reached her in another language.
Into the Hymnbook
First published in the Friend in 2002, the song entered Hymns—For Home and Church on September 12, 2024, as hymn #1011 — in the same batch as 'Amazing Grace.'
Perry, who received an honorary doctorate from BYU in 2020 and sang seven years in the Tabernacle Choir, has always explained her children's focus simply: 'Anything that the children can sing in a song will have much more staying power — and my heart was just in it.'
Did You Know?
- Janice Kapp Perry began composing seriously at 38 — after breaking her ankle playing basketball.
- She wrote this song for Primary's 125th anniversary broadcast, then heard it sung in Spanish while serving a mission in Chile.
- She has written more than a thousand songs, including 'I Love to See the Temple' and 'A Child's Prayer.'
- She sang in the Tabernacle Choir from 1993 to 1999 and received an honorary doctorate from BYU in 2020.
- Late in life, when a hand condition kept her from the piano, she kept composing — writing the music in her head.
Scripture Connections
- Alma 53:20–21 — A generation of young people 'true at all times' — the army of children the song imagines.
- 1 Timothy 4:12 — 'Be thou an example of the believers' — leadership that doesn't wait for adulthood.
- Matthew 18:3–5, 10 — Become as little children — whose angels 'do always behold the face of my Father.'
Talk About It
Questions to spark a conversation with your family or Primary class:
- The song imagines children in every country holding hands. What do you have in common with a Primary child in another land?
- Janice Kapp Perry heard her own song in Spanish in Chile. How does it feel to know children sing your favorite songs in hundreds of languages?
- Perry found her calling after an injury stopped her sports. Has a disappointment ever pointed you toward something better?
- What could our family do this month to be part of the 'gospel of love' the song describes?
Teaching Resources
Attribution
Music by: Janice Kapp Perry, 2001
Text by: Janice Kapp Perry, 2001
Audio files from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints