Finding peace in a frantic world

Everybody wants to go to war.

In 1985, it was a last minute change that made this song the greatest pop song of the 80’s. Tears for Fears single Everybody Wants To Rule The World was quite rightly a world wide hit.

Everybody wants to rule the world was a hit in many Countries and a No 1 in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. The song was deprived from reaching number 1 in the UK by, “funnily” enough, another song about the World – We are the World by USA for Africa.

The song wasn’t originally intended to be on their album and it was only by divine intervention and timing that the song came to fruition. It was a change to the title/lyrics from Everybody Wants to Go to War to Everybody Wants to Rule the World that it then made it onto their Album and into the singles charts. This subtle, yet important change in title changed the entire feeling of the song, backed up by a feel good video to promote it. Obviously, everyone doesn’t want to go to war, thus the change in title was necessary and this is where it gets interesting.

Unusually, the video begins in almost silence before the music starts, with a small child dressed up in a cowboy suit, holding a couple of toy guns, which foreshadows the former title of the song about going to war, before the last minute title change was made.

The most profound line from the song is “nothing ever lasts forever”. As a parent, this line really hits home, knowing that our time here on earth with our loved ones is comparatively short compared to the souls journey, which lasts forever.

The difference and similarity between everybody wanting to “go to war” and everybody wanting to “rule the world” is significant. Both going to war and ruling the world involve the ego, man’s drive to rule and control their surroundings and the lives of others. Going to war – albeit only a minority want this – signifies a potential external global event effecting millions of peace loving people who want anything but war.

To “rule the world” alludes not to a drive to be a ruler as such, but more to an inner human drive, the ego, power and force which affects man’s inner and ultimately outer world. The solution to man’s fixation with trying to control everything around us is to put our faith into something bigger, bigger than our selves. As the USA for Africa’s No 1 “We are the world”, alluded to, we are the world, we are one and not separate from it.

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Everybody wants to rule the world is written by Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley and Chris Hughes.
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