Today’s song has actually been in a few movies. For example, it was in the 1997 comedy Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, starring Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, the 2015 NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton and the ’80s-themed Steven Spielberg film Ready Player One. However, most folks remember it from the 1985 film Real Genius starring Val Kilmer.
The movie was nothing special. It was about a group of teen geniuses (led by Val Kilmer) who try to foil their professor’s plot to sell their high-powered laser to the military. (Yawn) Featured on the soundtrack was a song that hit #1 on the charts on this day in 1985 – Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears. It would be their first #1 in the US.
The song is featured on Tears for Fears’ Songs From The Big Chair album. (From songfacts.com) In an interview with Mix magazine, the band’s producer Chris Hughes explained that they spent months working on “Shout” and near the end of the sessions, Roland Orzabal came into the studio and played two simple chords on his acoustic guitar, which became the basis for the song. Said Hughes: “‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ was so simple and went down so quickly, it was effortless, really. In fact, as a piece of recording history, it’s bland as hell.”
(songfacts.com) The band had trouble getting into the original incarnation of the song, which featured the lyric “everybody wants to go to war.” When it was changed to the title phrase, everything clicked. “Once we got those lyrics, it was a joyful song,” Orzabal explained.
Because “Shout” was the group’s first single in the rest of the world, Tears For Fears thought it should also be their first release in the US, but the record label insisted “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” was better suited for their American debut. “Which is interesting in retrospect,” Smith told Consequence of Sound, “because it was one of those times when the record company was right and we were wrong, because for America, yes, it was a better first single.”
Welcome to your life
There’s no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you
Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on mother nature
Everybody wants to rule the world
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
So glad we’ve almost made it
So sad they had to fade it
Everybody wants to rule the world
I can’t stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision
Everybody wants to rule the world
Say that you’ll never, never, never, never need it
One headline why believe it?
Everybody wants to rule the world
All for freedom and for pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world
Writer/s: Christopher Merrick Hughes, Ian Stanley, Roland Orzabal
Publisher: BMG Rights Management
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 