July 1969: The last Liberty single was issued which went nowhere. Their contact ran out and things didn’t go too well. But the Searchers didn’t give up, they still had a name, they still had work although they didn’t earn very much, especially in their home country. Already in the end of 1968 John Blunt was gone - Billy Adamson had taken his place. Then he looked rather cool with his hair style - and he was a good drummer, one whose style fitted better than Blunt’s. Since 1968 RCA had a British division and they was looking for artists (just like Liberty had) “with international cachet. The Searchers seemed just the ticket. The contract with ‘RCA’ came about when the group was recruited to perform a demo of a song called Desdemona’.The producer of the demo session, incidentally, was David Paramor, a nephew of Cliff
Richard’s producer, Norrie Paramor. Richard Swainson at RCA heard the demo and signed both the Searchers and the song.” (from booklet The Complete RCA/UK recordings)

26th of February 1971: The new single was out. Because the Searchers still had a good name, others countries released the single as well.
,
Aus RCA RCA-2057
Ger RCA Victor 74-16084
Jap RCA SS-2134
NZ RCA Victor 60542
Phili RCA Victor 74-0484
SW RCA ?
UK RCA Victor 2057  Try
US RCA Victor 74-0484

above, left & right: UK single

Both sides were sung by Mike Pender, backup vocals by John & Frank

Things started quite good, at least they had some airplay in the USA, Germany and Sweden - and brought the boys back into the charts: in Sweden it went to no. 15 for one week on  August 21st. It also  entered the Amercian Top 100, reached no. 94 and stayed for three weeks.
Not a big success, but better than nothing - perhaps further singles could do better.
Although The World... is credited to Allen, McNally, Pender it is written by Mike Pender all by himself.

above and left: German single, world wide the only release with a picture cover showing the actual group.

above and left: Australian release plus a rare picture

below: two different promo pressings plus the official single
Above: Japanese record, where the covers shows a painting of an old cover from 1965, so the drummer here is still Chris.
far above: promo from the Philippine, above: New Zealand single