Day After Day #192: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (1985)

It's hard to write a great song. It's even harder to write more than one great song. In the '80s, Tears for Fears had a good run, releasing one banger after another.

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith were teenagers in Bath, England when they joined the band Graduate in 1979, playing new wave and mod revival music. The band released one album and then split up in 1981. Orzabal and Smith formed Tears for Fears as a duo, inspired by the likes of Gary Numan, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode and Soft Cell. The band's name was inspired by primal therapy, which was developed by U.S. psychologist Arthur Janov, who famously had John Lennon as a patient in the early '70s. 

They brought in supporting musicians to fill out the band's sound and released a few singles before having success with "Mad World," which went to #3 in the U.K. in November 1982. Tears for Fears released their first album, The Hurting, in March 1983. It did well in the U.K., with two more songs going top 5. 

For their next album, Songs from the Big Chair, Orzabal and Smith moved away from the synth pop sound of their debut and went for a more guitar-based rock sound. The first single "Mothers Talk" did well in the U.K., but it was "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" that broke Tears for Fears in the U.S. (and a lot of other places). The song was actually a bit of an afterthought, with Orzabal coaxed by producer Chris Hughes to record it. 

The song's lyrics take aim at the Cold War, which of course was a huge deal at the time, although there have been many other interpretations.

"Welcome to your life/There's no turning back/Even while we sleep/We will find you/Acting on your best behavior/Turn your back on Mother Nature/Everybody wants to rule the world."

"Everybody" was one of those songs that worked for just about any format: its dream pop sound was mellow enough to play on adult alternative or top 40, it rocked enough to play on the AOR stations and your mom probably didn't freak out when she heard it.

"It's my own design/It's my own remorse/Help me to decide/Help me make the/Most of freedom and of pleasure/Nothing ever lasts forever/Everybody wants to rule the world/There's a room where the light won't find you/Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down/When they do, I'll be right behind you/I'm so glad we've almost made it/So sad they had to fade it/Everybody wants to rule the world."

The song was everywhere in the spring and summer of 1985, eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June. The video was in heavy rotation on MTV as well. "Everybody" also went #1 in Canada and New Zealand and #2 in the U.K., Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands.

Tears for Fears wasn't done with the hitmaking. The next single, "Shout," also went to #1 in the U.S. and "Head Over Heels" got up to #3. Songs from the Big Chair also went to #1 on the Billboard 200, certified 5x Platinum.

The band didn't release their next album until the fall of 1989, when The Seeds of Love came out. It went to #1 in the U.K. and #8 in the U.S. I was a big fan of the Beatle-esque title track, but not as much of a fan of the rest of the album, which ventured into jazz and soul. I bought the CD but sold it later; I need to go back and check it out again.

Tears for Fears split up in 1991 after Orzabal and Smith had a falling out, although Orzabal released albums under that name in 1993 and 1995. They were less successful than the previous TFF albums. Orzabal and Smith reconciled in 2000 and released a new Tears for Fears album in 2004; it was originally supposed to come out in 2003 but label issues led to it being held up before they could find a new label. I honestly don't even really remember it coming out, but the album went to #46 on the Billboard 200.

A few years before that, "Mad World" became a hit again after it was covered by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the Donnie Darko soundtrack; the stripped-down version went to #1 in the U.K. for three weeks in late 2003, but it only hit #30 in the U.S. Still, it got a ton of radio play.

Tears for Fears toured periodically from 2010 to 2020, but didn't release a new studio album until 2022's The Tipping Point. The group started working on it in 2013, but it was delayed for various reasons. It debuted at #2 in in the U.K. and went top 10 in the U.S. While the band was touring for the album in the U.K. last year, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" re-entered the U.K. charts for 22 weeks. Talk about staying power.