"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, Thursday, January 12, 2023

I've talked about "Shout" and "Head over Heels," but neither of those massive hits is the most remembered song from the post-punk band Tears for Fears. You're unlikely to hear a track from their follow-up to Songs from the Big Chair in the grocery store, not the album's title track that is subtly about ejaculation, "Sowing the Seeds of Love." Nor would you hear the later Gary Jules-covered "Mad World" for the film Donnie Darko and featured on every nighttime drama from Tears for Fears' first album. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is Tears for Fears' biggest song, yet the lyrics seem to contradict the easy melody of the song, making it slightly misunderstood. 
 

ONE HEADLINE, WHY BELIEVE IT?  The syncopated guitar riff, the airy keys, and the somewhat chill vocals of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" act as a siren song, distracting listeners from the truly sinister theme of the song. Lyrics that sound like they could have been lifted from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four wrap around the repeated title hook: "Everybody wants to rule the world." But if you are my age or younger, the doomsday theme of the song failed to sink in as we were listening to the song while choosing a coffee in aisle 13. I loved maps and the globe when I was growing up, but in the late '80s and early '90s, the boundaries changed significantly. The Soviet Union was no more. Germany was reunited. Zaire became the Democratic Republic of Congo. Czechoslovakia split. Communism was crushed by American democracy and all was peaceful and right with the world. Until 9/11. But those ten years between the end of the Soviet Union and 9/11 gave my generation ten years of a childhood free of the fear of nuclear war--something my parents' generation and grandparents' generation lived with. Nuclear war seemed theoretical, but it seems that generations before me saw it as a real threat. 

THERE'S A ROOM A ROOM WHERE THE LIGHT WON'T FIND YOU. But today, nuclear war seems more and more likely with Russia's revived interest in getting the old gang back together. But perhaps this fear of nuclear war comes from more provocative world leaders playing to the voyeuristic urges of the public that views news as entertainment. Who hasn't written about the antigens in the blood of democracy after shocking election outcomes in the mid-'10s? But the heart of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is just that everyone thinks that they could do a better job. Everybody thinks that they will be the leader who gets a different outcome. And today, in America and other countries, elected officials have shed the belief in self-governance by the people. Instead, there should be a list of rules to micromanage the public. Maybe you see this at work, too. If you have a work ethic and know your job fairly well--fully trained--you can find something to do and maybe do it well. A supervisor can share a vision, take feedback from well-trained constituents, and hold meetings to discuss the progress of the product. But sometimes, the supervisor has another agenda and would rather tell you exactly what to do, step by step. The product you are creating is being dictated to you and you are in no way part of that product, just a machine in its assembly. Which situation breeds better workers? The supervisor who holds the information uses it as a weapon against the workers. And that's how you get a work environment where you say, "I could do her job, only better!" Indeed everybody wants to rule. 

Read “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears on Genius.

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