EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD (Tears For Fears 1985) What Is The Meaning Of This Song?

[HistoryIsComplex]

From the album "Songs From The Big Chair"

 

Some interesting lyrics (see below)

 

 

 

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

 

[oz93666]

Yes... a memorable song H is C ....

 

I found meaning in there , the lyrics are very loose and open to putting your own interpretation 

 

I put the whole title of this thread in search and got some interesting info ...

 

first the name of the group ...

What is the meaning of Tears for Fears?

tears as a replacement for fears

As Curt explained in an interview, "it means tears as a replacement for fears," the fears being the root cause of neurosis in adulthood (Hall 12). They found this medium to be a healthy and cathartic mechanism through which to create their music and lyrics.

 

The song's lyrics detail the desire humans have for control and power.^[22][23] In 2017, Tal Rosenberg of Pitchfork stated that its lyrics could be applied in different scenarios such as the environment ("Turn your back on mother nature"), short-lived financial success ("Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure/Nothing ever lasts forever"), dictatorial rule ("Even while we sleep/We will find you"), and the Cold War ("Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down").^[1] The Economist writer K.Y.W. called the track a Cold War anthem and noted its timeless message, stating that "the song's lyrics speak to the anxieties of every age."^[24]

This song by the English band Tears for Fears puts forth the idea that “everybody wants to rule the world.” However, this isn’t meant in a literal sense per se. It rather serves as an allusion to the global reality the artists dealt with when this track was written. 

 

 

 

Song was written during the Cold War era

It was during that time that the Cold War between the United States and Russia was at one of its peaks that this song was written. Thus many of the cryptic lyrics in it refer to that tense situation. However, what the track is about in general is the lust for power and control and the destructive consequences which manifest as a result. Thus it is also believed that “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” contains references to George Orwell’s classic book 1984. It is important to mention that 1984 is not only about war but also its fictional government’s all-encompassing desire to control the masses.

http://www.songmeaningsandfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Lyrics-of-everrybody-wants-to-rule-the-world.png

• In fact this track originally featured the lyrics “everybody wants to go to war.” However, Tears for Fears weren’t feeling that phrase and modified it.
• This is one of the most-beloved songs from the 1980s. For instance, it received the highly-distinguished BRIT Award in 1986.

 

 

[HistoryIsComplex]

This has everything from MONARCH BUTTERFLIES the ONE EYE PYRAMID IN IT:

 

 

 

[Anti Facts Sir]

On 5/8/2021 at 8:13 AM, HistoryIsComplex said:

From the album "Songs From The Big Chair"

 

Some interesting lyrics (see below)

 

 

 

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

 

 

The first bolded section is just an in-joke/barb at the record label, who insisted on cutting the length of their previous single Shout. It was over 6 and half minutes long, but they wanted it under 5 for radio play. 

 

The second is possibly another reference to the troubles they had making the album. Expectation was high, and the pressures of trying to make a hit album were getting to them. They struggled to write enough songs, and make decisions...it took their producer to focus on a couple of the stronger tracks and finally get the project moving in one direction.

[Ethel]

No idea what it means, but they're extremely good lyrics. I have seen this band live - they sounded amazing, more or less as good as they do on record.

[golly]

I think a meaningful message emerges when you take the main line "EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD" as the lie being blasted by the powers that be to turn us against one another and make us think we need them.

 

The song becomes about benevolent beings "of light" or whatever analog you want for good higher spirits basically deconstructing a kind of new age situation. We learn from hypnotherapists, mediums, people who experienced death and returned, and the like that we choose much of the "lessons" we wish to learn before incarnating on Earth. Maybe the song is a message that things are shaking up because despite the lie told by parasitic beings that we are born here to "fight for survival and domination" we are actually here to love and appreciate one another, and the school is becoming more than a learning place for this. It's becoming a place to cultivate more spiritual teachers and what some of the new agers call "ascended masters" or basically souls highly experienced in communicating our Creator(s)'s love.

 

Welcome to your life

There's no turning back
 

You're born into physical reality.

 

Even while we sleep
We will find you

 

Maybe something like, "We don't need to try too hard to communicate more and more updates to your soul. We'll even do it while you're in a liminal state." So the implication is the first we is all of us spiritual beings, and the second we is the higher ones referring to us Earthlings ("you")

 

Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on mother nature

 

If you betray this spiritual school (world) we made for you, you are basically triggering a divine intervention. So there's no escaping from a major upgrade to everyone.

Everybody wants to rule the world

 

You will begin to think this message, and that's when we hear you crying for help.

 

It's my own design
It's my own remorse
 

We created the place, regretfully, because we take responsibility for the souls filled with fear, but the Earth was needed to help you all out and cure your fears (turning them to titular tears, perhaps?)

 

Help me to decide
Help me make the

Most of freedom and of pleasure

 

While you are on Earth, you have freedom to make choices, you have free will, which means you can mess up your lessons big time. And the pleasures are on Earth to remind you that the main message is meant to be love. I suppose if you're Christian or Buddhist you could interpret pleasure to be a temptation or sin, but I'm just keeping to the feel that the song gives me, which is that pleasures (I'm assuming not like bad drugs, addictions, etc. but natural pleasures) are good. They are here for a reason.

Nothing ever lasts forever

 

Earth will not always be in its present state. It's changing based on your collective actions.

Everybody wants to rule the world

 

Because when people believe the lie that everybody wants to rule the world, it will certainly attract more of us benevolent guardian types to show up.

 

There's a room where the light won't find you
 

You even have the free will to get into a deep dark place in your own imaginations. It's akin to the "outer darkness" that Mormons mention, or the hell that mediums describe where souls completely forget love and believe some loop of guilt or horror or thinking existence must be flawed. It's especially true on Earth where physical laws can cause people to torment people and other forms of life.

 

Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down

When they do, I'll be right behind you

 

You humans may tear down the illusion at some point, which will bring a flood of love consciousness. We'll show up for you when it gets scary and reveal the light to you again. If that means you shed your human body because you killed yourself or were killed or met some other end, or if you have some fear when you have come back to the other side, we will be there for you, whispering you back to the light.
 

So glad we've almost made it
So sad they had to fade it
 

The time is getting nearer. Some people were in such despair over situations on Earth that we "thinned the veil" in places for supernatural things to take place. This helps more people become aware of the light and love behind the whole Earth school.

 

Everybody wants to rule the world

I can't stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision
 

Humans are so often stuck between incredibly enlightened thoughts and total doubt in the benevolence of all existence. You chose to come here blind and amnesiac to your higher soul purposes, but it's really making us too sad for you, which is why we're showing up now for this big transformation.

 

Everybody wants to rule the world

Say that you'll never, never, never, never need it

 

Please don't become one of the parasites of humanity that spread the lie that we're here to struggle and fight.

One headline, why believe it?
Everybody wants to rule the world

 

The fearful powers that be now use media, such as news headlines, to continue to spread the fear and division.

 

All for freedom and for pleasure

 

The good things are coming to you, and once more we created this place for your benefit and "spiritual evolution" as it were.

Nothing ever lasts forever

 

But if the lesson gets too hard, remember Earth life is temporary and people most often leave with spiritual benefits. So don't focus on the negative, if possible.

Everybody wants to rule the world

 

We're just repeating the false headline one more time to say we celebrate that even this message will not last forever on the planet.

[DougASmall]

On 5/8/2021 at 8:22 PM, HistoryIsComplex said:

This has everything from MONARCH BUTTERFLIES the ONE EYE PYRAMID IN IT:

 

 

 

Because you are in the system of a down. 

The down dynasty. 

The upside down right side up paradigm. 

 

Matrix means womb from the word mater which means mother. 

This is a twin female system. 

 

You are EXILES 

https://youtu.be/7v554QtlGKs

[Demure Debbie]

In all honesty, the lyrics could have been written by a 5 year old child such is the simplicity. Explain real lyrics like this : 

 

 

They're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors, the circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner, they've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, the other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless, they need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight, from Desolation Row

 

Cinderella, she seems so easy, "It takes one to know one, " she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning. "You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend, you'd better leave"
And the only sound that's left after the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden, the stars are beginning to hide
The fortune telling lady has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame

Everybody is making love or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing, he's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row

 

Ophelia, she's 'neath the window for her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic she wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion, her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he when off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row

 

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients, they're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser, she's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read, "Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on the penny whistles, you can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough from Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains, they're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera in a perfect image of a priest
They are spoon feeding Casanova to get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls, "Get outta here if you don't know"
Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row"

 

At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row

 

Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke
When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke
All these people that you mention, yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name
Right now, I can't read too good, don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row

[Zusies]

On 5/8/2021 at 8:13 AM, HistoryIsComplex said:

From the album "Songs From The Big Chair"

 

Some interesting lyrics (see below)

 

 

 

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

I remember this song from when I was a kid, always stuck in my mind along with a few others, very interesting theory enjoyed reading it.  

[Zusies]

On 5/22/2021 at 8:30 PM, Demure Debbie said:

In all honesty, the lyrics could have been written by a 5 year old child such is the simplicity. Explain real lyrics like this : 

 

 

They're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors, the circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner, they've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, the other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless, they need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight, from Desolation Row

 

Cinderella, she seems so easy, "It takes one to know one, " she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning. "You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend, you'd better leave"
And the only sound that's left after the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden, the stars are beginning to hide
The fortune telling lady has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame

Everybody is making love or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing, he's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row

 

Ophelia, she's 'neath the window for her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic she wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion, her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he when off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row

 

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients, they're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser, she's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read, "Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on the penny whistles, you can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough from Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains, they're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera in a perfect image of a priest
They are spoon feeding Casanova to get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls, "Get outta here if you don't know"
Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row"

 

At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row

 

Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke
When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke
All these people that you mention, yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name
Right now, I can't read too good, don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row

Dylan the poet.