It's a world of laughter, a world of tears;
It's a world of hopes and a world of fears;
There's so much that we share,
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world, after all.
It's a Small World, after all;
It's a Small World, after all;
It's a Small World, after all;
It's a small, small, world.
There is just one moon and one golden sun,
And a smile means friendship to everyone;
'Though the mountains divide,
and the oceans are wide,
It's a small world, after all.
It's a Small World, after all;
It's a Small World, after all;
It's a Small World, after all;
It's a small, small, world.
Richard and Robert Sherman
While it's true that the song gets firmly stuck in nearly everyone's heads, thanks mostly to the repetitive refrain, It's a Small World remains one of the most beloved of all attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
The seeming banality of the lyrics is, I'm sure, intentional. The whole idea -- since we know the Sherman brothers could write much better music -- was to create a song that could have come from the mouths of babes, so to speak. The whole attraction, in fact, is designed to highlight the "small world" idea by depicting a world filled with children, all singing this same song; this somewhat simplistic song thus fits perfectly.
The attraction was originally developed by Walt Disney and his imagineers for the 1964 World's Fair in New York City (along with Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the Carousel of Progress). When the World's Fair had ended in 1966, it moved to Disneyland Park in California. Walt Disney World has its own, slightly different, version (which happens to be the only one I've experienced).
Both versions have a fleet of boats which travel along a track set just below the water. The boats slowly wind their way through several large rooms, each of which is filled with animatronic children and animals from a different part of the world. The musical style changes with each change in setting, too, but all of the soundtracks are synchronized so that the music naturally blends from one style to another as the boats travel along.
And at the end, the final room leading back to the docks contains several farewells, each in a different language of the world.
Disney itself recognizes the ubiquity and pervasiveness of the song, enough so that they poke fun at it in the movie The Lion King. In one scene, Zazu is sitting in a cage next to Scar, apparently there to provide entertainment for the usurper. "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen," sings the bird, but Scar finds this too depressing and demands something more upbeat. Fine: "It's a Small World, after all; It's a Small World, after all..."
"No, no, no!" argues Scar. "Anything but that!"
Then Zazu starts in on "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," but that's neither here nor there.