All language subtitles for Classic Albums - Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair

# Welcome to your life

# There's no turning back

# Even while we sleep

# We will find you
acting on your best behaviour

# Turn your back on Mother Nature

# Everybody wants to rule
the world... #

Pop music was still
a growth industry.

It hadn't sort of
stagnated, stalled,

diversified into streaming,
like it is nowadays.

We were young, we were both
good-looking, especially Curt...

HE LAUGHS
..and we had the right music.

We were trying to
discover ourselves,

trying to do things with more depth,

trying to become musically
better at what we do.

# Shout, shout
Let it all out

# These are the things
I can do without

# Come on

# I'm talking to you... #

The songs were difficult to just sit
down and just...pick up and play.

But at the same time,

they had simple lines
that you could sing along with.

The textures in their songwriting,

the different moods that were set,
the different palettes,

were impressive.

# Something happens
and I'm head over heels

# I never find out
till I'm head over heels

# Something happens
and I'm head over heels

# Ah, don't take my heart
Don't break my heart

# Don't
Don't throw it away... #

You would never normally get three
songs that strong on an album,

but balance that out with tracks
like Listen, The Working Hour -

all those things that give it air
and give it time to breathe -

I think is what makes it something
more than just the sum of its parts.

# I believe

# That maybe somewhere
in the darkness

# In the night-time, in the storm
In the casino

# Casino Spanish eyes.... #

This really important album
that had something to say

said it in such an anthemic matter
that you were singing along with it

without even meaning to.

By the '80s, we were on 14 million,
16 million albums?

And by now, all these years later...

..must be under 20 million.
But it was just huge.

Absolutely huge.

# Acting on your best behaviour

# Turn your back on Mother Nature

# Everybody wants to rule
the world. #

MUSIC: Shout
by Tears For Fears

# Shout, shout
Let it all out... #

Roland had been given
this time off to write.

One afternoon, went round his house

and he just played
these three notes...

..bass notes, and sang,
"Shout, shout, let it all out.

"These are the things
I can do without. Come on."

And I was like, "Oh, my God!"

This is just anthemic,
simple, brilliant.

The thing about Shout was,
the very first time I heard it,

we were in the studio
and Ian came in.

He said, "You have to hear
what Roland's been doing

"over the weekend." Yeah.

And he played the part
and it was just...

HE HUMS INTRO TO SHOUT

It was unbelievably haunting.

And he just hit a note on the synth
and went, "Shout, shout,"

just off the cuff, and we said,
"Stop everything.

"We have to record this now."

They set up the microphone.
I sang it four times, tracked it.

And that's what you hear to this
day. And it just... I agree...

LAUGHS: You know?

I agree - it sounds great.

There's something about it.
I believed it.

# Shout, shout
Let it all out

# These are the things
I can do without

# Come on

# I'm talking to you
Come on... #

And we started with this intro,
didn't we? Oh, yes! Of course!

Which was... Never got used.

Yeah. And was basically
this nice guitar part.

INSTRUMENTAL PLAYS

Fantastic line!

Which I was quite glad
when we got rid of.

And then it comes in,
the main thing comes in. Yeah.

Dave Bascombe, who, you know,
was fantastic, would be more likely

to be asleep on top of the newspaper
than be arguing with us -

so, you know, waiting for us to
make a decision about something...

So Dave brought a certain ease
to the process... Totally.

A kind of cuddly lion, sort of,
at the front of the desk.

But Curt and I, again,
we were working as a duo with

and against Ian Stanley,
who was our keyboard player,

and Chris Hughes. It was their
relationship that allowed us to,

or forced us
into a more expansive sound.

When I wrote Shout, I imagined it to
be just simple rotation of a chorus,

a la "all we are saying is
give peace a chance" -

goes round and round and round
and round in a hypnotic way.

Ian and Chris said, "No, no.

"We're turning this into a proper
song with verses and everything."

I said, "Really?!"

And we knew it had to have a verse,

it had to have slightly more
traditional song structure,

but because it was slowish
and the chorus was long,

it was always going to be
a long, epic...

..thing, you know.

So it was tricky to get it to start,
to build and build,

keep your interest,
keep going, keep going

and get bigger and bigger.

The track Roland brought in -
or the demo -

had the basic chorus going on.
Yeah, yeah.

And then... That was all there was,
wasn't it? Yeah.

And then Ian and Roland set to
work on the verse structure,

and I think the Fairlight...

Ian working the Fairlight flutes
was a magical moment.

Added a layer on the mix which is
kind of integral. Yes. Yeah.

We came back and heard this noise -
heavy, heavy noise -

with these flutes and the sort of
Drumulator and, you know,

When The Levee Breaks drum sound.

And it was unrecognisable.

Unrecognisable.

And I remember walking
into the studio, I said to...

I said to myself, really, "I mean,
can we get away with this?

"Can we really do something
that is that obvious?"

You know?

The answer, of course, was yes. Yes!

So here we are in the middle eight,

which was like a landing strip for
all manner of experimentation.

Tried loads of ideas. Yeah.

Got some... My little funky guitar.
Beautiful guitar.

And then the real drums...
And then you're...Mr Chris Hughes...

DRUM TRACK PLAYS
..on the drums.

There we go - snare drum.

Chris Hughes, our producer,
was also a drummer.

He was Merrick in Adam And The Ants.

We knew he produced
Adam And The Ants.

We didn't know that he was Merrick
from Adam And The Ants.

He was the actual drummer.

And then we had the real toms.
Yeah. Back to the Fairlight ones.

So here's your real ones.

DRUM TRACK PLAYS

And then we added
the Fairlight ones.

SYNTH DRUM TRACK PLAYS

Do you remember, we started hitting
keyboard stands with screwdrivers?

That's right. For the clacking bit.
Triple tracked or something. Yeah.

CLACKING ON KEYBOARD STANDS PLAYS

I think one of the things
which was quite interesting

was the call for a guitar solo...
Oh, yes. ...which was...

That was quite interesting
because, at that point,

the idea of having guitar solos
were an anathema to a lot of people.

Yeah. It was the wrong thing to do.
So we did it.

# Shout, shout
Let it all out... #

Vocal arrangement aside,
lyrical content aside,

it...it had a different feel.

It didn't feel poppy.

Even though it was
keyboard and bass,

even though it was,
you know, synthetic

and had aspects of those
synthesisers

and everything that was a part
of it, it had this...

..eerie vibe to it.

By the end, it's just choir
and emotion and grandiose,

and it was kind of over the top.

# Let it all out
I'd really love to break your heart

# These are the things
I can do without

# I'd really love
to break your heart

# I'm talking to you

# Come on

# Come on, come on, come on
Judy, Judy, Judy, yeah... #

THEY LAUGH

Oh, that's right into the fade,
I think. Fantastic.

Haven't heard that for 35 years.
Fantastic.

It was unlike anything else
that I'd heard around.

The overall choice of instruments,

the arrangement and the chorus
just immediately appealed.

It's very freeing when you...

..stop being precious about things,
I think.

Yeah. And that's what happened
with that song in the end.

We were like, "Yep, let's throw
the kitchen sink at it. Why not?

"Why not do that? Why not put
the big guitar solo it the end?"

Or, you know, "Why not have
the loud Drumulator

"basically smacking you
round the face?

"Why not have gigantic
chorus vocals?"

There was a point - and it was
probably towards the end of Shout -

where I suddenly got this feeling
that the album was going to be

a powerful, interesting record.

It seemed to suddenly
become cohesive.

I think for me and Roland, it was
more a relief when Shout came along.

We know that Chris Hughes
and Dave Bates are looking for

the singles - "What are we
leading with? What's our track?"

You know, they're thinking
the business side.

When we're doing something,

we're not necessarily
just thinking of the singles.

We're thinking of the body of work.

Shout just seems to come
from nowhere.

It was suddenly out of the ether.

It was all over the radio.
It was all anyone was singing.

And this was an anthem
that was really different.

It had a sort of a soberness to it,
or a sort of a gravity to it.

But at the same time,
everybody was singing it.

I met Curt
when I was about 13 or 14.

Roland listened to me singing
to this track

called Last Days Of May
by Blue Oyster Cult -

obscure as it is -

and asked me if I was interested
in singing for his band.

So that's kind of how it started. We
didn't know each other before then.

We met by just... By the fact
that he was looking for a singer.

Singing wasn't something that
I particularly wanted to do

in the band.

I wanted to...
I always wanted to be Jimmy Page,

you know, and not Robert Plant.

He formed this band called Graduate.

They wanted to get rid
of the bass player,

so then Roland said,
"Can you play bass?"

And I said, "I could learn."
HE LAUGHS

So I did.

And we went on a small tour
of Germany, as 18-year-olds,

in the band called Graduate. Neither
of us enjoyed the experience at all.

We didn't want to be in the band
because it just got too complicated.

The two of us trying to agree
is hard enough.

Five people trying to agree
just didn't work.

One night, I said...

..you know, "I'm going to leave."

You know, and he said,
"Well, I'm coming with you."

We met this guy Ian Stanley,
and Ian was a kind of young...

He was a bit older than us -
he was 24, I think, then -

but young, sort of richer kid,
came from a richer family

and had a home studio in his
big house up on the hill.

I had a small studio in there.

It was a little four-track
and maybe a couple of keyboards.

This, actually, is the studio -
in this room.

And the living room,
where the piano was,

and the dinner table was up here.

He offered it to us.

He liked what we were doing
and offered it to us for free,

and to work with us
and get involved,

and so that was really the start
of Tears For Fears.

We started demoing things.

We'd go up to his house,

the house where we would eventually
record Songs From The Big Chair in.

And we'd make these demos.

The first three demos we made were
Pale Shelter, Mad World and Change.

And...

..they obviously went very well.

Roland and Curt took them to...

..Phonogram.

They played what they had.

We did a little bit of a remix
of a couple of the tracks.

I came back home and thought,
"I'm going to sign them."

# How can I be sure?

# When your intrusion's my illusion

# How can I be sure

# When all the time
you changed my mind

# I asked for more and more

# How can I be sure

# When you don't give me love
You give me pale shelter... #

They played Pale Shelter,
they played Suffer The Children,

and they played the B-side, which
I just turned around and went, "No.

"That's not a B-side.
That's an A-side."

And that was called Mad World.

# Went to school
and I was very nervous

# No-one knew me, no-one knew me

# Hello, teacher,
tell me what's my lesson

# Look right through me
Look right through me... #

We found ourselves
right at the beginning of

the electronic explosion,
and I found myself -

although I'm a guitarist -
absolutely loving the synthesiser

and the fact that I could make it,
turn it into a trumpet.

Synths built the '80s.

So you had bands like
The Human League and Heaven 17,

the spin-off of The Human League.

You had Soft Cell,
you had Cabaret Voltaire.

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark,
bands like Depeche Mode.

Bands that didn't have a drummer,
bands that used to

work mainly in the studio, use
a tape machine or a drum machine.

And it became THE thing.

We sort of realised that production
was the next step for us.

It was also the start of...

You know, LinnDrums
had just come in,

sequences are being used more,

Gary Numan was doing
what he was doing,

which is, you know,
just pure electronic music.

So it wasn't bands
and guitars any more.

So we had this song, put it out -

and weeks later, we had a smash-hit
single on our hands.

We managed to combine up-tempo,
upbeat pop with dark lyrics.

And some of those lyrics would
just go over everyone's heads.

He put in things that meant
something to him,

but he didn't mean for it
to have the same meaning

for every individual.

And this is the way he wrote.

Sometimes it was very personal

and sometimes it was meant
to be very general.

"The dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had."

From Mad World. I mean...

You know, is it talking
about suicide?

No, it's not really, but, you know,
that didn't stop it from being

accepted as a piece of cutting-edge
synthesised pop at the time.

# And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad

# The dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had

# I find it hard to tell you
cos I find it hard to take

# When people run in circles
It's a very, very

# Mad world... #

The success came, obviously,

very quickly from the hit of having
Mad World on your hands,

and then desperately trying
to get the album out

onto the back of that.

Mad World was gigantic for me -
and The Hurting as well.

And those sounds, the production
of that record, is so incredible.

All of The Hurting was recorded
in Penthouse Studio in Abbey Road,

and then we finished a lot of it
at our studios in Oxford Circus.

The Hurting was a torturous journey.

I remember working seven days
a week, working late into the night

and going down at 2 o'clock
in the morning

to hear Curt crying in the toilets

because he was doing take 36
of Pale Shelter.

The Hurting had a kind of
a chilly heart.

It was spooked and spooky.

It was skeletal in parts,
and yet the songwriting was so good

that it had muscle
and blood and flesh.

By the end of the album,
we'd pretty much got to gold -

so that was 100,000 -
and heading towards platinum.

So we knew we had a really strong
base from that success.

I felt like The Hurting was
tailored to my life somehow,

or at least I was...

..superimposing it onto my life
or projecting onto my life

and it fit me.

There were bands before us,
bands like Joy Division,

with songs like
Love Will Tear Us Apart.

There were a lot of bands
wearing their heart on their sleeve

and making darker music.

There was a sadness and a melancholy

and a longing that I felt like
I could relate to or identify with.

# Where does the end of me

# Become the start of you

# When it's all too late

# It's all too late

# Change

# You can change... #

The darkness was certainly there
on The Hurting.

That was the thing that most of
the press picked up on

when they reviewed it.

And the British press weren't
very kind to synth-pop bands

at the best of times,

but they kind of treated them
as whiny little bastards, really.

You know, "For heaven's sake,
you boys!" You know?

"Stop whining!"

The Hurting was not given its due
in the day,

even it was a number-one album.

Critics didn't warm to it
cos it was kind of...

It was almost too honest
and too soul-bearing for many.

In a sense, we were successful.

We were a commodity. And these...

..I would say benign forces...

..came together - in the shape of
Dave Bates, Ian Stanley

and Chris Hughes -

and gently pushed us front stage.

So, "No more looking at your shoes,
guys," you know.

"There's a big world out there,
and you can conquer it."

They started touring - and they'd
never been a touring band.

They'd never done
the big, full tours.

So that was a learning curve
for them.

We were 21 when The Hurting
came out.

Yeah, it was strange. No-one teaches
you how to deal with fame.

I didn't understand why people
were screaming at me and thinking

I was something amazing when I
didn't feel that inside necessarily.

You know, our album was called
The Hurting. You know?

And suddenly,
you have these young kind of girls

and young people screaming at you
and thinking you're amazing.

Yet the whole essence of
the album is,

"We're not amazing, we're in pain."

I think some of the lyrics -
I pat myself on the back -

for an 18-year-old to write...
still stand up today.

I mean, I'm 57,

we play Memories Fade
from The Hurting live,

and the lyrics are just...

I love them.

The cathartic aspects of performing
and of exorcising those demons

through performance
is irreplaceable.

It really is.

It's an incredible thing to be able
to have the outlet

to channel those emotions,
to get them out.

It was time to really move on
to get the next album out.

We did a tour after The Hurting
and then went back

and really started the body of work
that became

Songs From The Big Chair.

And I think, once we sort of retired
to Ian's house in Bath

and started putting things together,

that felt like we had
started an album.

And...

And a lot of it also was us
running away from the pressure

of record companies and the record
company wanting something quickly,

wanting something tomorrow.

We discussed the possibilities
of not using just synthesisers

on this recording, that perhaps
we should bring guitars back in

and get something
a little bit more robust.

# It's not
that you're not good enough

# It's just that we can
make you better

# Given that you pay the price

# We can keep you
young and tender... #

Mothers Talk was a tricky one.

It was probably what you would call
the transition record to

get us away from The Hurting.

Mothers Talk was my attempt...

It doesn't sound like it, but
my attempt at doing Talking Heads,

with just those two notes.

# My features form
with a change in the weather... #

David Byrne, you know.

But I couldn't get away with it.

# My features form with a change
in the weather

# We can

# We can work it out... #

It showed that Tears For Fears
were changing

and it introduced
that robust guitar sound.

In radio terms,
hearing Mothers Talk,

the people at Radio 1 were shocked
because they were used to

the nice synthesiser sounds
of Tears For Fears.

# Following in the footsteps
of a funeral pyre

# You were paid not to listen
Now your house is on fire

# Wake me up when things get started

# When everything
starts to happen... #

It's probably not one of his best
songs. No. But that's not the point.

Its part in this album is crucial.

By not getting Mothers Talk right...

..by re-recording it
at least once more...

..that pushed us
into a different direction.

So I don't like it,
but it's a very important song.

The one thing that myself
and Roland had was the same feeling,

which was, "Something is not right."

We felt like we were deprived of
a lot of things growing up,

but in our two cases
for different reasons.

I mean, mine, my parents just had
to work all the time,

so they had no time for kids.

I grew up with Mum
training strippers...

..and with my dad,
who was out of work through illness,

making tape recordings of, you know,
country-and-western singers or...

..or folk bands.

Roland came from a more middle-class
background, I would say.

Mine was very working-class.

My mother worked in Boots,
my father was a waiter.

So...different backgrounds
but the same level of neglect.

My parents split up
when I was about seven,

and my mum sort of ended up

with this barman from Bristol.

And so we moved to Beth.

I grew up on a housing estate
in Bath, my hometown.

So we lived on a council estate
all our lives growing up.

We never had a car.
We never had a phone.

And then when I first met Roland,
we had no phone,

so he'd have to come and get me.

I'd have to go to the call box
to call him,

you know, which is just up the hill.

Arthur Janov was
a Californian psychologist

who had a theory of
how the mind works

and how neurosis and depression

and mental illness in general
is developed.

Janov was one of those kind of
LA-based guru/psychologist

sort of guys, you know?

His first book, The Primal Scream,
came out in 1970.

And his whole theory was that

if your parents don't give you
what you need to thrive

or if they hurt you in any way,
that those hurts actually get

somehow imprinted
into your entire system.

It's in your blood.
It's in your unconscious.

And the whole idea of Primal Scream
was to bring them up

to the surface by going back
to your childhood in your mind

and yelling and screaming
from that kind of unconscious

side of your memory and
somehow managing to, I don't know,

face it and get rid of it.

John Lennon - this was post-Beatles,
you know, with Yoko -

read the book and he went,
"Hallelujah!

"This is the truth."

Suddenly, everything made sense.

All his childhood trauma

and the loss of his mother explained
why he was always in so much pain.

I read it and I went...

.."Hallelujah! This is, you know,
my childhood."

All the violence at home...

..was the reason why I wasn't...

..a happy man, you know.
And then I gave it to Curt.

And Curt went, "Hallelujah!"

"It's your parents' fault,"
is basically all it's saying.

And then when I started
primal therapy,

I was really
getting everything out -

shout, shout, letting it all out.

Interestingly, as I've got older,

I don't believe
in all of that at all

because his premise was that
children come in a blank slate

and they are what society
and their parents make them.

But if you have children,
or anyone that has children,

once you have a child,
you realise that's so not true.

Tears For Fears, which Curt
came up with, is a direct...

It's almost a sentence within
one of Janov's books.

It was very reassuring that
someone had gone into detail

about why we felt the way we felt.

# I believe

# That when the hurting
and the pain has gone

# We will be strong

# Oh, yes, we will be strong... #

I Believe was...

..clearly influenced by
Robert Wyatt.

I was a huge Soft Machine fan -

and subsequently
a huge Robert Wyatt fan -

and Rock Bottom had come out.

And I played it to Roland,

and I think he was knocked out by
the emotion and the rawness of it.

I got into virtually all his albums
and I had a go at copying his voice,

so writing very much in the style
of Robert Wyatt,

which led to I Believe.

# I believe

# That if you knew
just what these tears were for... #

See, that's his best Robert
impression at that point.

It's just got the essence
of something that's... It should be.

It's a Robert Wyatt.

Yeah, it's a lovely...
Beautiful singing.

# That's why I believe

# It is too late... #
Fab.

# For anyone to believe... #

One of the things that set
Tears For Fears apart

from the others, like Spandau Ballet
and Duran Duran, was Roland's voice.

This isn't
like your ordinary standard.

He just has a... Wow...
His voice is, like, this wide.

# I believe

# That if you knew
just what these tears were for

# They would just pour

# Like every drop of rain... #

Saxophone. That's Will Gregory.
Will Gregory.

Flown in off the demo.

SAXOPHONE TRACK PLAYS

And he just got it dead right.

So, on the demo, he just got
something special... Yeah.

..and then that was used
for the final work.

And then we have all the...
PIZZICATO STRING SYNTH PLAYS

This, which was never used.

Which is great. It's fantastic.
Yeah. Let's hear that in context.

# You would not resign yourself... #

Doesn't really need it in the end,
but it's a lovely texture. Yeah.

That's something that would've fit
onto The Hurting for me.

You know? And it was also...

There was once again this melancholy
and lyrics

that, even though I didn't really
know what they meant,

it sort of fit into the vocabulary
that I would use to describe myself

at the time or that I would use
to describe my experience as a human

at the time.
You know, the turmoil of...

The turmoil of adolescence,
you know.

With me... Obviously, I've talked
about this at great length,

but, you know, for me, it was about
coming to terms with my sexuality,

growing up in a very
religious environment

out in the middle of nowhere
in Colorado.

So I was going through
a very specific, you know,

thing at the time.

And that was music that made me
feel understood and comfortable.

DAVE: So I Believe was just
a B-side originally...

Yeah. ..and then Curt said,
"It's too good.

"We should put it on the album."
Yeah, he was right.

It's one of those ones that,
when I listen to it, I'm like,

"Yeah, I see why people related
to this."

It's got that sort of...
Again, going back to the thing

that a lot of albums didn't have at
that time, which was hits AND depth.

Some years later, I remember
receiving a call from the guys

saying that they wanted me
to go on tour with them.

And I started the show with
I Believe, and suddenly you heard...

CHEERING

..the piano start with
these bass notes.

# I believe

# That when the hurting
and the pain has gone

# We will be strong

# Oh, yes, we will be strong... #

How many pop-rock groups
starts with a grand piano on stage?

Except for Elton John, but he's
totally in a class by himself.

But you don't usually expect
Tears For Fears

to have a grand piano on stage.

The Working Hour started off

as a...solo piano piece

which Ian wrote.

At that time, we were
very into a movie

called Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence,

starring David Bowie and
Ryuichi Sakamoto.

And Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote
the soundtrack for the film

as well as starring as this
Japanese commandant.

The start of The Working Hour is...

It would certainly have been
influenced by his work.

I came up, separately at home,
with the verse.

And Ian, for some reason, he just
didn't want them to be put together!

I'm thinking, "You're crazy!
They go so well!"

I mean, the key change
and everything!

# This day and age

# For all

# And not for one

# All lies and secrets

# Put on

# Put on and on

# This is the working hour

# We are paid by those
who learn by our mistakes... #

One of the things that's underrated,
in my opinion,

on this track is Curt Smith's
bass playing. Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, it's some fine playing.
Yeah.

He had great parts. Yeah.

This is one of them, yeah.

ISOLATED BASS TRACK PLAYS

Steinberger bass.
It sounded really good. It does.

Of its time but still sounds good
now. Yeah, it's great.

There was...a constant desire
for another single.

And it wasn't like...

Literally any song we had
became the next single.

And, yeah, The Working Hour is,

"We are paid by those
who learn by our mistakes,"

cos that's the kind of feeling
I had, is that we are

being pushed around,
being told what to do,

and we might end up failing,

and then they will know not to do
that again with the next act.

# This is the working hour

# We are paid by those
who learn by our mistakes

# This is the working hour... #

I always wanted to know
what he meant by that line!

THEY LAUGH

They think anything's a single
once you've had a hit because

you're a hit band, so whatever
you do is going to be a hit.

That's not a reality, you know?
It really isn't.

And we were always more concerned
about, you know,

whether it would actually give us
a career than a hit.

When it came to calling the album
something, there was a strong...

..movement to have the album called
The Working Hour.

And there was a very big argument...

..cos I wanted to call it
Songs From The Big Chair.

And I was the only one.

And I won.

And also,
it was the same with the artwork.

They were trying to do the artwork,

so they're going to get some kind of
Miro-like squiggle,

and Curt and I had just done
a black-and-white photo session.

I was looking at the proofs.

I said, "That's the album cover."

It was as simple as that.

They chose that picture,

they put on the title,
and it was like...

It's a no-brainer.

It's classic.

They look like a couple of little
sort of tortured adolescents,

if that. Very sort of sweet.

They weren't the sort of usual
cocky rock stars or pop stars

that were around at that time.

Duran Duran, they just seemed
to be made for pop music.

They looked like pop stars,
they strutted,

they did the whole thing.

And yet these two look like two
little dormice sitting together

on the cover of the album,
very worried.

I wasn't sure about the lyrics.

I didn't know what it was about,
other than it's a love song.

Curt finished the lyrics...

..for me - thank God.

I think when Roland says
it's kind of a simple love song,

I think that's more lyrically
than it is in the recording.

I think what makes it big

and what makes it more than that
is the recording of it.

You know, once you start with
that big piano motif,

you're just saying,
"Hello, this is a big song."

One of the coolest things
that happened is that they did use

piano sounds with a rock setting.

That's very cool.

And it's clean.

MUSIC: Head Over Heels
by Tears For Fears

This is bar 8 - arpeggio.

ISOLATED SYNTH TRACK PLAYS

And there's a beautiful metal on top
of the piano, isn't there?

We just mixed in a tiny bit. Yeah.

METALLIC PERCUSSION PLAYS

And that's it for the intro.

# I wanted to be with you alone... #

That does sound great
on top of the piano, doesn't it?

The whole nature of it.
It's not just piano. Yes.

# But traditions I can trace
against the child in your face

# Won't escape my attention... #

It's unique,
in that it's sort of a love song,

which Roland would very rarely
delve into.

It's certainly not a simple
"I love you" in terms of structure

and the chords and, you know...

It's quite an involved bit of music.

I just love that chorus. It's
just... It's a monster of a chorus.

And it's a beautiful melody.

# Something happens
and I'm head over heels

# I never find out
till I'm head over heels... #

We felt it could be like

Take Me To The River
by Talking Heads, feel-wise.

Fabulous bass playing, isn't it?
It is fantastic. Great part. Yeah.

Bass and drums together.

ISOLATED BASS AND DRUMS PLAYS

That's Take Me To The River.

I mean, that's just
so hooking itself. I know.

Rhythm is something that is what
drives me most of the time anyway,

so the bass and drums are really
the rhythm section behind a band.

And, you know, there's nothing to me
more pleasurable than when you're

really completely as one and tight
with a drummer, being a bass player.

If you listen to it against some
of the other songs on the album,

it's a huge sort of big soundscape
of a song.

# Something happens
and I'm head over heels... #

Another synth solo,
which I think was Ian.

SYNTH TRACK PLAYS

A stab on the end...

..which I don't remember at all!

It was just Chris Hughes making us
record it very simply.

So it's really in the production
that turned it into something else,

other than just a simple love song.

Head Over Heels also has perhaps
the best, most epic "la, la, la"

coda refrain since Hey Jude
by The Beatles or Hot Love by T Rex.

It's an absolutely irresistible
climax to a fantastic song.

This is a marvellous moment
where the piano and the choir

work together. Yeah. It sets up
the whole of the outro.

It's a beautiful moment.

# La, la, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, la

# La-a, la-a, la, la, la-la

# La, la, la, la, la... #

We did some ambient ones. Yeah.

And then they were triple-tracked
to simulate the idea

that it was a huge choir. Yeah.

Which really works, I think. Yeah.

I always liked the conversation
between the piano

and that choir line.
It's beautifully written, I think.

# La, la, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la... #

It went around another eight bars,
and we chopped it out

and chopped it down a bit. Yeah.

So you've got
this wonderful interplay...

That's what I thought, yeah. Yeah.
Really interesting verse,

and then quite a light love story
in the chorus. Yeah.

Dave Bates...

..wanted us to break America.

He kept talking about a drive-time
record, a drive-time hit...

I didn't know
what he was talking about.

People drive around
with their arm out the window,

and they're whistling the song,
and it sounds perfect.

Every now and again, walking around
the house or in the studio,

Roland would play two chords
on an acoustic guitar.

SYNTH CHORDS PLAY

And I'd hear this and I'd say,
"What is this, Roland?"

And he wasn't that bothered.

He wasn't that interested
in making it a song

but he just, every now and again,
would play it.

And I took the two chords
and sequenced them

with a little drumbeat
and a bass part.

BASS AND DRUMS FILTER IN

And then one afternoon, Caroline -
Roland's wife - came to the studio.

It was a Sunday afternoon.

And I played it. And she said,
"Wow, what's this? It's great."

I said, "Yeah, I think so too.
Tell your husband."

I didn't like Everybody Wants To
Rule The World when I wrote it

because it wasn't called
Everybody Wants To Rule The World.

It was called
Everybody Wants To Go To War.

I wrote it on the acoustic guitar
against a shuffled beat

on the LinnDrum.

And it sounded very, very weak.

Um, it was really my late wife,
Caroline,

who...was the champion of that song.

I thought it was lightweight.

Couldn't see anything in it.
I think Curt thought the same.

Even Roland thought the same,
you know.

We were sort of against it.
It was just too...

It wasn't anything, you know.

I knew there needed to be a calling,

some kind of sound you'd hear
across the room and you'd go,

"Oh, I like that!"

And I worked with Ian on that,
and I said,

"It's some kind of just
a simple chime-y synth

"and it sort of drops down..."
HE HUMS

Some kind of... And he went...

INTRO TO SONG PLAYS

..kind of like this.
And he nailed it.

Chris, God bless him, I think
because it was a shuffle...

HE HUMS RHYTHM

..which, as a drummer...

..he sort of...
He would respond to that.

About a week later, Roland
came into the studio and said,

"OK, I think I've got something."

And he had a few lyrics
and a few bits and pieces.

And I said, "Stop.

"Let's stop everything,
write this and record it."

And it was written and recorded in,
I think it was five days,

six days maybe -

which, for us, was ridiculous,
you know.

We'd take at least a month
on a song.

So one of the first things
Roland brought to this was

the beautiful opening arpeggio...
Yep. ..which is... Guitar and synth.

Guitar...

GUITAR TRACK PLAYS

And that sets the whole...

And we're off.

I tried singing
Everybody Wants To Rule The World.

It sounded terrible.

When Curt sang it, it was like...

Sounded completely right.

It's worth mentioning Curt's vocal
is so beautiful here, tender.

# It's my own desire... #

It has...real deep quality
without too much expression.

It has incredible soul
and depth to it.

The temperature which Curt sings
this is so perfect for the song.

# And of pleasure

# Nothing ever lasts forever... #

Yeah, it fits in perfectly.

# Everybody wants to rule
the world... #

If you actually read the lyrics
on paper, they're not easy

to kind of work out whether they're
happy, sad, pro, anti.

You know, it's almost as if they've
kind of glued together

some clever phrases.
But you do have phrases like,

"Holding hands while the wall
comes tumbling down,"

which emphasised the era.

# There's a room where the light
won't find you... #

And a few tracks of Roland.

# Holding hands while the walls
come tumbling down... #

Together.

# When they do
I'll be right behind you

# So glad we've almost made it... #

They sound great together.
Really good. They really do.

# So sad they had to fade it... #
Too loud.

# Everybody wants to rule
the world... #

I liked the combination
of the two vocals

and how they blended together
from time to time,

and how they would accent
and complement each other.

Roland's voice goes perfectly
with Curt's, which is a pure sound,

you know.

It's not quite as wide,
but the two of them fit beautifully.

They really were their own thing.
It was very unique.

And even the tonality of the vocals
was very, very easily identifiable.

It set them apart.

In Everybody Wants To Rule
The World, you have a marvellous

song structure where, again,
there's this Tears For Fears trick

of what seems to be starting a
chorus before the verse is finished

so that they overlap,

which makes you, as a listener,
really get sucked up into it,

like the action is happening
and you can't resist.

# Everybody wants to rule the

# Say that you'll never, never,
never, never need it

# One headline, why believe it?

# Everybody wants to rule
the world... #

We were short of songs,
there was no question.

The last song.

DAVE: I think the initial impression
was a bit of a throwaway, really,

I suppose, cos it was the last thing
we did and it was...

I think "album filler" was mentioned
at one point. Yeah.

We thought it's what the album
needed, which was a light interlude,

but we never thought it was
this huge hit which it became.

The first time I heard it,

I nearly wept with joy

because that was my drive-time hit
there and then,

Everybody Wants To Rule The World.

You just knew straight away -
that's the big hit.

# All for freedom and for pleasure

# Nothing ever lasts forever

# Everybody wants to rule
the world. #

At that time, the video world
was only just beginning.

There was a huge change
in musical landscape in the '80s -

two very big things.

One of them was the advent of CDs
pretty much in the middle

of the '80s, but bigger even than
that in the beginning was MTV.

And at that point, they were looking
for kind of bright, shiny,

good-looking people to put on the TV
to go with the music.

Boy, did we arrive
at the right moment

because they were desperate
for material.

And Everybody Wants To Rule The
World was perfect for MTV.

MTV was huge for us.

And they embraced us.

We weren't glamorous in any way,
shape or form,

but maybe that's what was attractive
about it.

Suddenly, these videos could go out

and you could literally hit
the entire globe

and people could hear the song
and see the band playing the song.

For three or four months,
we were totally over everywhere.

And you're on TV all the time.

We toured and toured and toured
and toured and toured -

the same songs,
only two albums' worth,

in the same order because of
the Revox side-stage.

You had to take the machines on
tour, you had to do what was there.

And so I guess they just...

Up there, being a little parrot,
doing the same old thing on stage

every night, people yelling at them,
that's very bad for the psyche.

And they'd already made it
fairly clear

that their psyches were
a little fragile.

That long a tour, you come back
and everything's different.

Your relationships get strained,
the band relationships got strained.

One day, we played Kansas.
It was a Sunday, I think.

We went back to the hotel
and we went into the bar,

and a woman was on stage.

No-one had ever heard of her.

We were number one.

She made me cry.
She made everyone cry.

And I thought,
"That's what music's about."

At that point...

..she decided...

..the next four years of Tears For
Fears - apart from me doing therapy.

It was searching for what she had,

and we only got it

when she came across to England
to play in the band, Oleta Adams.

# Calls her man the Great White Hope

# Says she's fine
She'll always cope

# Ooh

# Woman in chains

# Woman in chains

# Well, I feel

# Lying and waiting... #

We must have spent three or four
months rehearsing in England.

It was wonderful.
It was a great experience and...

I won't ever forget the first shows.

I didn't expect all the screaming,
you know?

"Listen" is an amazing piece
of work.

It's essentially something that
Ian Stanley spent time writing

and working on and arranging.

We'd come back to Bath
and I'd pop up to see Ian.

And one evening... He bought
all this sort of, you know,

very sophisticated... Lot of wires.
..synthesiser equipment.

Came up with the melody,
programmed all these modulars...

This modular synth,
a Roland 100M system,

which is one of those mad scientist
things where you plug cables into...

..and try and get a sound out of it.
Anyway, by luck...

..with a bit of design,
created the basis of Listen.

And I thought it was just
absolutely beautiful.

But, you know, typical Ian.

We then had to recreate every sound
because there was no way...

He didn't write things down,
he didn't take snapshots

of where the leads went, so it took
forever just to recreate it.

And then Chris went mad on
the Fairlight on top of it.

There came a point where it had
to be recorded.

It had been something
he had been working away on.

And we got down to recording it
for the record,

and we just kept adding
little bits -

threads of synths, harmonies,

strange bits of vocal,
extra guitars -

and it became quite an epic.

Certainly the second half of
that track, the way it fades out

and the album waves goodbye, is...

For me, that's quite classic.
That's quite epic.

And then when it came to doing
those strange backing vocals,

it was really...

Ian was just throwing these
odd Kenyan words at me,

and I would sing them, but I don't
think they mean anything at all.

Well, they used to mean, "Wrap me up
a chicken tikka takeaway,"

is all I remember it, but...

I'd been to Kenya and knew
the Swahili for "chicken",

which is kuku.

So...the rest of it is nonsense.
It's...

"Humay ana chicken kuku say...

"chicken a kuku say."

Absolute rubbish. But...

..if you...

If you sing it with enough
commitment, you get away with it.

MUSIC: Listen
by Tears For Fears

I think you mixed the vocal
too quiet. Thank you.

THEY LAUGH

Now you tell me! I'm sorry, mate!

But it is almost a beautiful
film scene which lets you float out

on a wave of good feeling.

Listen's really important
to the album as a whole

because a lot of the album
is quite dense and intense.

And even though Listen
is very produced,

it still gives you a breather.
There's not many vocals on it.

It's really a piece of music
that you can kind of -

for want of sounding
a little hippie-ish -

kind of trip out to, where you can
just close your eyes and be sort of,

you know, in the middle of the music

as opposed to someone
talking at you.

Now, with hindsight, it's perceived
as one of the landmark albums

of the '80s, one of the greatest
musical statements of the '80s.

It defines its time
and it stands up today.

The fact that someone said
that Songs From The Big Chair

was an era-defining album, that's...

It's not for us to say.

But I can see why,

and especially as we move further
and further from that decade

and you keep hearing Everybody Wants
To Rule The World, in various forms,

yeah, I do, I do, I think it IS
an era-defining album.

Though it IS for us to say.
HE LAUGHS

Well, not necessarily for us,
but, you know...

Cos apparently someone else
said it for us.

That album was absolutely huge
in America.

It made it to number one

and it was in the top 10
for something like six months.

And that was a time
when there was a lot of

very, very big albums coming out.

It takes you on a journey.

And that journey can just hit
at various moods.

It can lift you, it can take you
into a dark place,

it can take you into
an uplifting place.

It can take you
pretty much anywhere.

It's...

Yeah, it is a classic album.

What has set us apart since then
is we stuck around,

so, in that sense, you know,
I think that...

I think the album had a lot more
depth than a lot of those

other albums of that time -

and albums of more depth
tend to stick around longer.

Also, I just think that the whole...

The album cover - the two of us,
black-and-white faces -

the title and the fact that it has
some cracking pop songs on it,

it's just... Yeah.
I'm very, very happy.

# Say that you'll never, never,
never, never need it

# One headline, why believe it?

# Everybody wants to rule the world

# All for freedom and for pleasure

# Nothing ever lasts forever

# Everybody wants to rule
the world. #

CHEERING