Tears For Fears – Everybody Wants To Rule The World

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” – Single by Tears for Fears from the album Songs from the Big Chair, with B-side”Pharaohs”
Released on 25 February 1985.

“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.[2] 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.

The video for “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” was directed by Nigel Dick. It was filmed in Los Angeles, a desert in California and Cabazon.Curt Smith admitted to Pitchfork that the video shoot was a “disaster”; Dick was “in tears” on the second night of shooting. Smith also mentioned that there was an accident while filming the “dirt bikes and four-wheel [sic] off-road vehicles” scene, with one child flying out of a vehicle and smashing his head, leaving him unconscious.

The video begins with Smith driving a vintage Austin-Healey 3000 sports car while a toddler points toy guns in Smith’s direction. The car is then seen driving through a desert, this scene is intercut with the band performing the song in a studio. Smith parks the car at the Wheel Inn diner and makes a call from a telephone booth. The camera pans to show a statue of a man riding a horse nearby. Smith leaves the diner in the car while singing the song’s lyrics. The following scene shows two men in suits performing synchronised dance movements in front of two gas pumps. Shots of young people riding three-wheeled ATVs and dirt bikes through desert sand dunes are also shown. Smith is then shown singing in the desert wearing black sunglasses as many of the dirt bike and ATV riders approach from behind him and pass to either side.

The music video promoted the group in America, due to “heavy rotation” on the music video channel MTV. HuffPost editor Daryl Deino ranked the video at number three on their year-end list for best music videos of 1985 stating that the video “represents pure Americana as it was in 1985”. Deino also mentioned that the video “proves that at times, artists were able to do so much with so little.

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Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Official Music Video)04:51

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