Song Exploder - Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Tears for Fears is a duo formed in 1981 in Bath, England by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. They’ve sold over 30 million albums, starting with their first, The Hurting, which went to number one in the UK. But it was their second album, Songs from the Big Chair, that made them international stars. It came out in 1985, and had huge singles like “Shout” and "Head Over Heels.” But their biggest hit is “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” It won Best Single at the BRIT Awards in 1986, and it’s been streamed over 2 billion times. So I talked to the two of them about how they, along with their producer Chris Hughes and keyboard player Ian Stanley, made a song that would help define the sound of the 80s.Thanks to Sonos for their support of the podcast. Check out sonos.com.For more, visit songexploder.net/tears-for-fears.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. This episode contains explicit language. Tears for Fears is a duo formed in 1981 in Bath, England, by Roland Orsebal and Kurt Smith. They've sold over 30 million albums, starting with their first, The Herding, which went to number one in the UK. But it was their second album, Songs from the Big Chair, that made them international stars. It came out in 1985 and had huge singles like Shout and Head Over Heels, but their biggest hit is everybody wants to rule the world.

It won Best Single at the Brit Awards in 1986, and it's been streamed over two billion times. So I talked to the two of them about how they, along with their producer Chris Hughes and keyboard player Ian Stanley, made a song that would help define the sound of the 80s. And Osabal? And I am Kurt Smith. Before we get into this song,

I was wondering if you two could tell the story of how you first met and started a band. Well, we first met at the door of my apartment flat in Bath. Snowhill, yeah. In Snowhill, which is a council estate, so I guess in America you called them the projects. And I was grounded for getting in a fight. How old were you? 14, maybe. 14, 14, I think.

Roland came with a mutual friend. He was at a different school than I was in Bath. When I met Kurt, I thought, as he said, he was grounded. And I thought, who the hell is this hooligan? You know, so I was a little bit wary of him, while at the same time kind of fascinated, same as now, really. I was in a kind of really bad heavy metal band, and I was wanted to be sort of Jimmy Page. I never saw myself as a singer.

And with Kurt, I remember being in a different apartment. and he was singing along to last days of May, Blue Oyster Colt, and he was unashamed. He was into the music, and he wore his heart on his sleeve. I thought, you know, it was obvious to me, Kurt should become a lead singer of our band. So, yeah, that's how we first started the musical relationship. It was at that point in time that sort of opposites attract.

I definitely was a trouble. maker. He was, you know, good at school and straight A's and all that kind of stuff. But there was some mutual attraction. When you two first started, was that band called Tears for Fears? No, no, no, no. We don't really want to talk about the names of the band we were in. They were pretty bad names. Yeah, they were pretty bad. And so we're best left to posterity. And then also came at a time when, you know, we were, I guess we were 18 then, we'd moved away from the sort of hard rock stuff listening to we were getting into production. So we're listening to Peter Gabriel and bands that actually really made quite gloriously produced records.

And suddenly we were like, that's the kind of thing we want to be doing or aiming for. We want to aim to be that good. I think it's an interesting part of the band dynamic to bring up. up because it's not enough just to really be good together musically or even get along well. It's also really important to have a similar level of ambition. Well, here's the point about getting on really well, because I would argue, or I would suggest, that if you get on really well, that's not a good thing. That there has to be an element of tension.

there has to be fundamentally a different approach and disagreement at the heart of it. Now, you may learn over decades, which we have, to completely get on, but fundamentally, there has to be the grit in the oyster around which the pearl is formed. You know, without question, we have learned to deal with each other over the years, and it's become easier for us without question. But we have musically very different tastes, where, tears for fears comes from is the middle ground between what we like individually. As you were getting ready to work on this song, what was going on in your lives as a band?

Well, we'd already been successful. Yeah. Probably beyond our artist dreams with the first album, The Hirting. We had three top five singles in Britain. We were in the teen magazines. We were on the same top of the pops of believers' culture club in those days. But while this was all going on, we have this terrible sort of perfectionists slash progressive instinct. The record company were desperate for us to follow up what was a very successful album.

But we were more concerned about doing something that may be different. So we were already at this house in Bathabic House, owned by Ian Stanley and we were experimenting. We often experimented doing B-Sides. No one cared. And they were great fun. So we experimented. We did this song very quickly called The Way You Are.

And now that should have been a B-side. But the record company said to us, no, this is your next single. It was a kind of strange song, not written from the heart. And it only got to number 24. So like, whoa, what's going on? And the way you are, you know, for all its faults and it does, because it's really bad, I think. But it did teach us that that's not good enough.

And so it was sort of back to writing the songs more than anything else. Maybe it's time to focus more on the songwriting. So following that, we recorded a song called Mother's Talk, and that became a bigger hit than the way you are. So after Mother's Talk, relative success, I was then given. a month off to write the rest of the album. And I was walking back with all kinds of things. There was a song by simple minds called Waterfront with its bass part. Babon, Bobom, Bobom, Bobom, Bo Bum, Incessant.

So I just put that on the bass drum. The Lynn Drum Machine had just come out. There was a song called Throwing Away the Key by a soul duo called Link. and it had this very, very strange high hat going, it was square against what we call the shuffled beat. So I put that all in and put in a cabassa to play the other beats to the high hat. And I was playing on the acoustic guitar. I tuned the string down to a D and there were just two chords.

And the chorus was, everybody wants to go to war. I didn't feel very good at it. about that. This is at a time when, obviously, Russia and America still had the nuclear threat. They still do. Things haven't changed. It was the height of the Cold War back then. Yeah. It was Reagan era. And so I wasn't sure about song. I had the chords. I had the climb. Everybody wants to go to war. I didn't like it. My wife at the time, Caroline, said, no, that's really good. I was really? Okay. So, I took in a bunch of songs into the studio, and I played them to Kurt and Chris Hughes and Ian Stanley and Chris Hughes producing.

But everybody wants to rule the world. It was never finished. It just had, it didn't have a middle eight or anything like that. Kurt, do you remember hearing that unfinished version? Yeah, well, the feel of it was great. And I think that was the hard part of doing everybody was to make it into something more than just a track that felt great. because your first feeling is, you know, this is a wonderful driving song. But there are times when you're doing a project where you kind of may like a song,

but it doesn't fit into what you're doing. And we were trying to do things of more depth and something bigger than that, or we want a bigger track, which ended up being shout, you know, like a big sounding track. So once we had shout and once we had head over hills, which was kind of bombastic, Like, it wasn't until then that it fit in where we needed that breath of fresh air. Were you looking for a way to try and include the song? Like, after you had head over heels and you had shout, did you say, oh, now I know, now we can fit this song in? No, what it was.

You know, I don't think either of us were very keen on that song. No. Probably because of the title. Everybody wants to go to war. What the hell? You know, it's not very nice. It's not very positive. and Dave Bates, our A&R man at Phonogram, kept going on about America.

We didn't care. Going on about America in what way? The Horton was successful everywhere in the world, pretty much apart from America. I mean, it had minor success in America. So he was constantly because his whole thing was making the band bigger. That was his job. Yeah, that was his job. I mean, we actually didn't care that much.

We were sort of happy with where we were. And so did his comment? play into how you were thinking about the everybody wants to go to war song? Well, as I said, it was bugging me and lyrics do do bug me. This is where they're incredibly important, especially for titles. You get a great title. It's half the battle, really. Good beat, good title.

Okay, the rest is simple. It just was one of those things that popped into my head, you know. Well, this guy's telling us what to do. He wants us to break America. he wants to rule the world. It's personal now. And that flows off the tongue. You know, everybody wants to go to war does not flow off the tone.

When it became everybody wants to rule the world, suddenly it was like, that sings well. My conversation with Tears for Fears continues after this. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24. fourth. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the

product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists. including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Malina,

Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin, and the other. more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Chris Hughes, our producer, went to the same school as Dave Bates, uh, the A&R man, and he also was confident about the song. So he had us every day, at the end of the recording session, every day we would all sit together and we would play through the song.

And that was a first. And so did this song feel different from the others that you were working on? Well, recording can be a little bit stressful. There would be a lot of discussions, arguments. When we finally came to play, everybody wants to rule the world at the end of the day, it was a relief and a release. So that's the atmosphere. You have to realize that music should be fun. And it kind of, when it is fun, it's a lot easier. We used to get bogged down in so much detail. And suddenly we were playing. So he'd hit the drum machine and it really didn't matter what you played. Because it's so open, every part has to be really, not necessarily catchy, but something

about it that draws you in and they all work against each other rhythmically. So it took a long time to find all the parts where you're like, oh yeah, that, that sounds great. What would Chris do? Would he play along with you? Or are he just sort of taking notes? He'd play some bass notes, yeah. It was wonderful. And it was a contrast to how we worked.

But that's how the song was finished to all the little missing bits, like that crazy guitar intro. So it was a question of finding those bits, and each bit had to do its little part. It's interesting to listen to it, because it took so long the keyboard bit at the very beginning to give the intro, that took a long time until that came along.

You know, Roland's incredibly angular, weird, chordal guitar solo in the middle. You said there wasn't a bridge or a middle eight originally. So how did that eventually come about? Ian Stanley, our keyboard player, it's so funny because a lot of things never dawned on me. You know, Chris would say, oh, we need a middle eight. And Ian goes, okay, we'll try these chords.

And they are, to be honest with you, if you analyze them, stock chords. They're pretty straightforward G, G, D, A. But sometimes when obvious things are presented to you from other people, they seem more exotic. There's a long tomling down when they do, I'll be right behind you. So Kurt and I were introduced to a book called Primal Scream by Alfianov. And coming from sort of, I guess, broken homes, utterly bought into this theory. they fuck you up your mum and dad, that kind of theory.

It was perfect for us to see the child as a kind of blank slate with no real soul personality and all the bad things that happened to him or her from the womb onwards would create this personality, the pain and all this kind of stuff that needed to be through primal therapy exercised. If you think about the lyric, there's a room where the light won't find you, holding hands while the walls come tumbling down. It's really a reference to the primal scream and the padded room where you are alone with the therapist and can pour your heart out.

That is two of us here. No, I'm the one that goes up. Kurt goes up and I go down. And a lot of the time recording is tough. A lot of the time recording is stressful. and everyone's getting on each other's nerves because of the stress. Was there anything that stressed you out or any parts that you didn't like that actually made their way into the final recording?

For me, yeah, and it comes to the second verse, and then there's this sound that goes, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And it just used to drive me mad because it was never enough. I never thought that that sound was enough, but we suck with it. Rhythmically, what it does is great. is not the best set. Can you tell me about this other guitar solo?

Yeah, Neil Taylor, a bit of history. Neil played with us in 1983's In My Minds I Tour. So he came in to play the solo at the end of everybody wants to rule the world. And it was two takes. Yeah. Guy's world class. What made you want to bring someone from outside of the band just for that moment? Well, he'd been playing with us.

Yeah, he'd been playing with us. loved his guitar playing because it has a style. I mean, he sounds like him. You know, I mean, it's hard to find those people that actually have a distinct style of their own. It's incredibly melodic. The complete opposite to my first rhythm guitar solo. And then we did actually finish and mix stuff in Germany. We went up to Germany at the end, plays called Union Studios in Munich, which is actually where we finished. Everybody wants for all the world. Oh, what besides mixing, were you finishing at that point? Well, you know, I had one night to come up with the lyric.

Because again, I was very slow with lyrics back then, incredibly slow. So I had one night to finish the lyrics, and the first verse was, It's My Own Design, It's My Own Remorse. And Kurt went in to sing, It's my own design. It's my own remorse. And everyone's going, including Kurt, maybe it should start with Welcome to Your Life.

Was that a lyric that had already been written? That was the second verse. The verses got switched. Welcome to your life. I can't imagine. So you're about to go mix the album. We haven't finished the lyric or the vocals. But you knew that that song was going to be on the album.

Yeah. I can't imagine having so much of the song still be unfinished and going to mix. Yeah, but I think, I don't know, it's funny because Chris Hughes, the producer, was always totally confident. He never needed, oh, it's got to be finished before we go. Oh, I've got to hear the lyric before we go. No, he knew fundamentally that it was right. So, Kurt, how long did it take for you to feel comfortable that you could be familiar enough with the lyrics and the melody to say, yeah, I'm ready to record this? Well, he was reading off the page.

Only my handwriting. You didn't think, oh, I need three weeks with this. song before I go to put it on tape. I'm not that singer. No, I mean, you get it pretty quickly or you don't. I mean, I think the thing is, if it has an overall emotion, then it becomes pretty simple. And, you know, with the title and the opening line, then being what it was, it became more of a kind of, a bit more of a joyous song, even though it was not really joyous lyrically. So glad we've almost made it.

So sad they had to fade it. There's a lyric in it so sad they had to fade it, which was, you know, directly from Dave Bates' influence because we had Shout as a single and he was adamant. We had to shave. How many seconds of? Shout was eight minutes long.

Yeah. We knew that was long for a single. And he wanted to edit it down to three and a half for five minutes. And we said, no, absolutely. And so in the end, he said, all right, well, I'm just going to take three seconds. So he took three seconds off. And it was, yeah, it was Dave fading shak, three seconds early.

As your ANR guy, when you were working on this song and writing those lyrics, did he know that that's what you were writing about? No. At the time, no. No. He does now. Yeah. He's a great guy, you know, he's...

No, we had definitely... Wouldn't be anywhere without him. No, without question. Were you already thinking about singles the way the label had been thinking about singles, like, we were, yeah, we had disagreements about that. Well, because Shad was released as the first single, everywhere else in the world, apart from America.

And America, you know, decided they wanted to release everybody once from all the world. First, and we disagreed. On this occasion, which is very rare, we were wrong. And they seemed to be correct. Was there a moment where it felt like you realized this song was going to change your life? We were actually in Toronto. We were on tour. We're playing multiple nights at Massey Hall.

And I remember sort of having early mornings, 7 o'clock in the morning, I had a headache, you had a migraine or something like that. And I think Kurt was asleep. I was. Our manager called me and in jubilant tones announced, congratulations, you're number one in America. And I was like, well, I got a migraine. And right now I don't really care because of the workload.

That's what it was. Because we were on tour, and it all became so huge in America. America so quickly. The workload was unbelievable. I remember it as a not a particularly enjoyable time at all. Did your feelings for the song change over time? My response to it now, every time I hear it on the radio, I just think, wow, that's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Well, I'm playing it live as a joy, you know, because we used to open with the song, to use it as the first song in the set. And you'd have a, say, arena full of people that are just sitting there kind of waiting and anticipating what you're going to play and then the first do-do-do and then guitar part comes in and you know it's a few notes

of music it's all it is changes the mood of up to 100,000 people and that's the power of music that never ceases to a stay in me and now here's everybody wants to rule the world by tears for fears in its entirety visit songexplotor.net you'll find links to buy or stream everybody wants to rule the world and you can watch the music video this episode was produced by me, Mary Dolan, Craig Ely, and Kathleen Smith, with production assistance from Tiger Biscope. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm.

If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter. You can find it on the Song Exploder website. You can also follow me and Song Explooplore. on Instagram. And if you want to support the podcast in another way, you can get a t-shirt at songexploader.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh, Hereway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.