When you think about Christmas, what do you imagine? Egg nog… Evergreens… Tears for Fears? OK, I might be a lone boat on the ocean with that one, but even when it’s the dog day of summer and Tears for Fears is blasting on the radio, I can’t help but be brought back into a chillier and cheerier time of year. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Take a listen to their hit single “Everybody Wants to Rule The World” from their 1985 record Songs from The Big Chair. Or, if you don’t have time to listen to all 41 minutes, have a look at my explication of it.
At first blush, this song doesn’t really seem to really capture the spirit of Christmas, but if you keep on listening, you begin to start picking things out. The first thing you’ll probably notice is that the intro really is reminiscent of Christmas bells, and that it wouldn't really be out of place in a middle school holiday concert if it were an instrumental preformed poorly a glockenspiel.
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Let’s take a closer look at the lyrics, going stanza by stanza.
While the first line “Welcome to your life, there's no turning back” admittedly sounds a little creepy for a holiday song, let me remind you that the entirety of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” sounds a heck of a lot like someone’s in the process of getting roofied, but let’s save that for another explication, shall we? Anyway, back to the song. This probably refers to someone being born, possibly everyone, possibly Jesus, but regardless: you’re stuck here on earth.
Or… It could refer to Santa.
Here me out: somebody’s got to deliver those presents. As we all know, it seems that both your parents and Santa are omniscient, with the ability to see you when you’re sleeping and awake, or about to sneak out of the house after curfew, good and bad and all that Jazz, which is why the next lines “Even while we sleep we will find/ You acting on your best behavior” fit this scenario perfectly. Children are inherently devious and naughty, because, hey, they're kids, and it’s a part of growing up. So, in order to get presents, children have to “Turn (their) back on Mother Nature” in order to get on the nice list.
As for the last line and title of the song; “Everybody wants to rule the world”, it refers to the wish of every child to be in charge, well, everybody actually. Everybody wants to rule the world, and some probably ask for it for Christmas.
Children… adults… Donald Trump… Everyone.
I remember thinking that I would be a great candidate for Supreme Ruler of Earth when I was 8, but then again, so did everybody.
In the second stanza, a conflict emerges: The conflict of deciding what to ask your parents (or Santa) for for Christmas. “It’s my own desire, it’s my own remorse/ Help me to decide, help me make the most” Obviously, we get a little greedy during the holidays, and in our excitement, we tend to ask for some pretty useless and ridiculous things, here’s looking at you, 5-year-old me who for some reason desperately wanted a pet rock. Obviously, I regretted getting it. I should have asked for advice before, as I could have gotten something much more useful and cool, like Moon shoes. OK, bad example, moving onward:
“Of freedom and of pleasure/ nothing ever lasts forever”. These lines are really reminiscent of Robert Frosts “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, as the main theme of this song is that nothing good lasts for long, like being a kid. As a kid, I was more likely to believe in Santa, and therefore more likely to be spoiled and get toys and presents in the spirit of Christmas. But, nothing lasts forever.
Time makes you bolder, children get older… Wait, wrong song.
The title gets repeated, enforcing the point that everyone wants power, and that maybe, in the spirit of Christmas, they’ll get a miracle.
The third stanza continues the theme of growing up and losing innocence, as generally people don’t believe that Santa’s real into their teens. But parents want their kids to stay kids for as long as possible, and the light in the line “There’s a room where the light won’t find you” could refer to knowledge and growing up.
But, as you generally don’t shelter your children for the entirety of their lives, the next two lines “Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down/ When they do, I'll be right behind you” refer to parents being tossed from their throne of lies, and having to comfort their child.
The next two lines reinforce this idea of regret and bitter sweetness. “So glad we've almost made it/ so sad they had to fade it.” Growing up sucks, but you have to do it. I might have to pay taxes and do my own laundry now, but I can buy and eat an entire cheesecake now without having to share. So, while growing up may blow, there are some good things that you grow into as you “fade out” of being a child, so you can be glad and sad at the same time.
The last stanza had honestly the hardest lines to fit into my crackpot- genius, I mean genius theory. So, I’m going to claim that the child from the previous lines has grown up, and now has a family of their own. The next two lines; “I can't stand this indecision/ Married with a lack of vision” refer to the frustrating choices you have to make with growing children around the holidays, especially the first line. The “indecisions” that are being discussed are weather or not to tell their kids that Santa’s a big, fat, phony, or to let them go on believing for a few years that there’s magic in the world.
“Married” in the next line probably refers to actually ya know, being married. Their partner is probably not very creative with ideas for presents, so they suggest that they give them what everybody wants, “To rule the world”.
And as we all know, money is power, and it does indeed make the world go ‘round, they probably ended up giving their kids cash or gift cards for Christmas, as isn’t that what we all really want when we grow up?
These last three lines are pretty vague, and thus could really be interpreted as honestly anything. “Say that you'll never, never, never, need it/ One headline, why believe it?” What is it that the narrator doesn’t want you and me to need? It could refer to the cash, as the perils of being an adult, and just a person in general, are pretty much entirely encompassed by running out of cash. You aren’t supposed to depend on receiving money as a gift to survive (As a college student, it happens, trust me), it’s supposed to be a nice little bonus to celebrate. Or, this line could refer to the need to believe in Santa to have a happy Christmas, when it’s really all about spending time with your family and spreading the love around.
And finally, the last real line refers to having Christmas spoiled by a single headline, or anything official, really- claiming that Santa’s a fraud. The narrator is probably asking us to keep the faith, and that people just want to “rule” you, to force you into believing what they want you to, and that Santa doesn’t exist, and that Christmas is just a holiday about spending cash.
As a whole, this song speaks in-depth of the thrills and perils of Christmas as a whole, being young and learning the truth about Santa, and then becoming an adult and having to make the same decisions as your parents before you. While it may not be as popular as “Jingle Bells” or as filled with alliteration as “Walking in a winter wonderland”, I still feel this song has a potential to become a yuletide classic.
