Tears For Fears ~ Everybody Wants To Rule The World 1985 New Wave XTension

Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal met when they were 13 years old in Bath, England. Roland was already writing songs at that age and he found Curt to be a good vocalist and persuaded him to join his heavy metal band.

Curt opted to go to college and Roland formed a folk band but they remained fast friends. One day Roland was handed a book by Arthur Janov, "The Primal Scream" and he learned how events in one's childhood effect the adult psyche. He continued reading Janov with "Prisoners Of Pain" in which one of the chapters "Tears For Fears" inspired him to take that on as a band name.

Their first LP "The Hurting" provided the new group with three hits, "Mad World", "Change" and "Pale Shelter. They took a break after promoting this album and decided to try another tack so as not to get stuck in the same groove and came up with "Songs From The Big Chair".

The first single issued in America was the last song recorded came about when producer Chris Hughes asked Roland to complete a song fragment he had started that Roland thought was no good since it was very un-Tears for fears like. Roland finished the lyrics and wrote a guitar line then went into the studio to record "Everybody Wants To Rule The World". It was completed in three days. It provided them with the American hit breakthrough the Roland credits to the appeal of driving music that Americans have.

It spent two weeks at #1 and broke the band in a big way in America.

This song pretty much sums up what is going on today, dontcha think?