‘Welcome to your life / There’s no turning back.’
One of the best opening lines. One of the best songs.
‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ by ‘Tears for Fears’ marked a shift for the band; a looking outward, a step into social, even political commentary. It is a deeply serious, even cynical song, which, according to The Economist “speaks to the anxieties of every age”.
And yet, the song, a song from my early childhood, cannot help but speak to me of a more innocent time – is there not something about the guitar, about that melody, that is irrepressible, even joyful?
Perhaps it is this tension that makes the song so powerful to so many of my generation.
‘Nothing ever lasts forever’ … and yet, this song is forever young.