Everybody Wants To Rule The World

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a song by English pop rock band Tears for Fears. It was written by Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley, and Chris Hughes and produced by Hughes. The song was first released on 22 March 1985 by Phonogram, Mercury, and Vertigo Records as the third single from the band's second album, ''Songs from the Big Chair'' (1985). "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a new wave and synth-pop song with lyrics that detail the desire humans have for control and power and centre on themes of corruption.

Music critics praised "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" in their retrospective reviews, with some ranking the song among the decade's best. Along with " Shout" (1984), it is one of the band's signature songs. An international success, the song peaked at number two in Ireland, Australia, and the United Kingdom and at number one in Canada, New Zealand, and on both the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and '' Cashbox''. It was certified gold by both Music Canada (MC) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Nigel Dick directed the music video, which received promotion from MTV. It shows bassist Curt Smith (who sings lead vocal) driving an antique Austin-Healey 3000 sports car around Southern California intercut with shots of the band performing the song in a studio. In 1986, the song won Best Single at the Brit Awards. The group re-recorded the song as a charity single for the Sport Aid campaign. The song was covered by Lorde for the soundtrack to the movie adaptation of '' The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'', and was remixed by Lil Baby (titled "The World Is Yours for the Taking") for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Background and release

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was written by Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley and Chris Hughes, and produced by Hughes. The song was a "last-minute" addition during recording sessions of ''Songs from the Big Chair'' (1985). The decision to include the song in the album came after Orzabal played two chords on his acoustic guitar for Hughes. It was recorded in two weeks and added as the final track on the album. According to Orzabal, the final line in the song's chorus, originally written as "Everybody wants to go to war", contributed to his indifference towards the track.

In an interview with '' Mix'' magazine, Hughes said that "as a piece of recording history, he song isbland as hell". Orzabal's unimpressed reaction to the track during their songwriting sessions prompted Hughes to convince him to record it, in a calculated effort to garner American chart success. After completing their sessions at 6 p.m., they would spend an hour reviewing each recording many times; this helped Orzabal to create the song's guitar figure and change its title. Orzabal acknowledged that the shuffle beat used in the song was "alien" to their way of writing music, stating it was "jolly rather than square and rigid in the manner of " Shout", but it continued the process of becoming more extrovert." Curt Smith, the song's lead singer, said the themes were "quite serious – it's about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes."

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was first released on 22 March 1985 through Phonogram, Mercury and Vertigo Records as the third single from ''Songs from the Big Chair''. The song was released for sale (as a 7-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch vinyl set) which included its B-side, interviews from the band and different versions of the song. To accommodate the vinyl release, a CD video set was also distributed and included the song's music video along audios of bonus tracks.

Composition and lyrical interpretation

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a new wave and synth-pop song. The song is set in the key of D major with a time signature and a tempo of 116 beats per minute. The band stated that the driving shuffle rhythm was influenced by Simple Minds' 1983 song " Waterfront", and Linx's 1981 song "Throw Away the Key". "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" incorporates synthesizers, guitar, a shuffle groove, two guitar solos, and keyboards.

According to Joe Strummer (of The Clash) in a 1988 interview, he was in a restaurant and saw Orzabal, whereupon he told him that "you owe me a fiver", explaining that the title of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was an exact lift of the first line of the middle eight in " Charlie Don't Surf". According to Strummer, Orzabal simply reached into his pocket and gave him a five pound note, confirming that this had been the case. The song's lyrics detail the desire humans have for control and power. In 2017, Tal Rosenberg of ''Pitchfork'' stated that its lyrics could be applied in different scenarios such as the environment ("Turn your back on mother nature"), short-lived financial success ("Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure/Nothing ever lasts forever"), dictatorial rule ("Even while we sleep/We will find you"), and the Cold War ("Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down").

The song's lyrics have elicited different political interpretations. A writer for ''The Economist'' called the track "a Cold War anthem" and noted its "timeless message", stating that "the song's lyrics speak to the anxieties of every age". Marc Ambinder from ''The Atlantic'' used the lyrics "Say that you'll never, never, never need it / One headline, why believe it? / Everybody wants to rule the world" in his article about the United States government's use of " original classified authority" and the abuse of power between the branches of government. Dominic Pino of ''National Review'' described the track as a "conservative pop song", noting the lyrics' tension between "personal ambition" and "channeling that personal ambition to good ends", comparing these themes to James Madison's concerns about private interest in the ''Federalist Papers.'' Curt Smith challenged this interpretation.

Tears for Fears revisited the song and its message in a 2017 interview with Yahoo! Music, stating that the song's themes were still "just as poignant" as they were when they first wrote it. They mentioned that they discussed the Cold War with "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and ''Songs from the Big Chair'' but that was the " U.S. and Russia then, and now the concern is more with the U.S. and orthKorea."

Reception

''Consequence of Sound'' editor Michael Roffman praised the group for being able to produce a "timeless and influential composition" with minimal effort. Roffman also noted that "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was appropriate when it was first released, calling it a "meditative commentary on an era that was so corrupt economically and spiritually." AllMusic's Stanton Swihart expressed in his retrospective review that the group "perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the mid-'80s while impossibly managing to also create a dreamy, timeless pop classic." ''Pitchfork'' called it a song with "near-universal appeal", as well as a staple for "classic-rock radio, pharmacies, bars, and parties". In their review for the best albums of the 1980s, Eric Henderson from ''Slant Magazine'' stated that the song "seems like one of the great indictments of the materialism and false triumphalism of the decade."

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was voted the 25th best single in ''The Village Voice''s Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1985 with 17 points, sharing the spot with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Don't Come Around Here No More" (1985) and Sade's "Smooth Operator" (1984). ''Pitchfork'' placed the song at number 82 on their list for the best songs of the 80s expressing that "underneath the synth-pop sheen, its vague message" and its lesson in how power-driven society could be, the song was able to reach "Reagan and Margaret-era youth fed up with political greed". Kevin Korber from ''Spectrum Culture'' ranked the song at 24 on his 80s decade list, calling the song a "testament to how much of a free-for-all the pop landscape was in the 1980s". Korber dismissed the song's vague lyrics but praised its complex melodic structure, saying it was "both the perfect representation of its time and a timeless composition". ''Treble'' included the song at number 49 on their decade list. In 2021, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked the song at number 319 in their updated list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

In 1986, the song won " Best Single" at the Brit Awards. Band member and co-writer Roland Orzabal argued that the song deserved to win the Ivor Novello International Hit of the Year award, claiming that the winner—" 19" by Paul Hardcastle—was not an actual song, but only a "dialogue collage". In 2015, 30 years after its release, the song was honoured at the annual BMI Awards in London for achieving 6 million radio airplays. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is regarded as the group's signature song, along with " Shout" (1984).

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was banned for broadcast by the BBC
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