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

It's my own design
It's my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most

Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world

There's a room where the light won't find you
Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down
When they do I'll be right behind you

So glad we've almost made it
So sad they had to fade it
Everybody wants to rule the world

I can't stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision
Everybody wants to rule the world
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


Lyrics submitted by numb

Everybody Wants to Rule the World Lyrics as written by Ian Stanley Christopher Merrick Hughes

Lyrics © CONSALAD CO., Ltd., BMG Rights Management

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Everybody Wants to Rule the World song meanings
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  • +1
    General Comment

    Great song, always gets me thinking.. To me, it seems that "ruling the world" isn't so much referring to assuming a position of wealth or power, but perhaps DEFINING the world (more specifically, our own lives and their meanings and purposes) to the point that we're consumed by these definitions ("There's no turning back"). Where he says "It's my own design/it's my own remorse" I got the sense that he's referring to us bringing this undesirable point of "no turning back" upon our invdividual SELVES, each and every one of us.
    I think the most important lines in the song (in terms of getting the main idea across) are in the beginning: lines 3-5. Here, I'm getting the feeling that "even while we sleep", all day, everyday, we're caught up in a world we've created for ourselves instead of the one set here by "mother nature", whom, as a result, were are "turning our backs" upon. The pleading tone of the song ("Help me make the most..") drives home the final point: that this is not good, but instead RESTRICTING of our collective potential for happiness rather than enhancing it. By becoming encompassed by our own unnatural desires, it follows that we tend to lose sight of the "finer" things in life, "freedom and pleasure".

    gb85on August 31, 2005   Link

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