What Makes the Tears for Fears Song ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ So Musically Great

Musician and music essayist Rick Beato took a detailed musical look at the seemingly prescient Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in order to determine “What Makes This Song Great”.

In this episode we take an in-depth look at Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”.

Beato notes the unique intro to the song, the illusory rhythm pattern, the song’s unique voice, and its AABA song structure.

Now what I love about this song is that it’s so basic, because it really just has an AABA chorus structure to it. There’s no pre-chorus so it gets right to the hook and what’s cool about the hook …you’re in D but the thing that makes the verse fresh is that it’s not just a straight Dmajor, it’s really DMajor7or DMajor9.