All I know is that you're beautiful and I want to touch you and feel the warmth of your blood and your life
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So, I'm driving across the bridge this morning, thinking about how I feel sad and I want to cry, when Everybody Wants to Rule the World comes on the radio. It took a second to realize just how right the song was for the moment, but I had caught on well before the delivery of the line, "Welcome to your life, there's no turning back." I don't care to consider why, but I find the song almost epitomically sad, and it just doesn't seem like there is a better time to be reminded of how unlikely one's future success is than when you are hopelessly despondent about the present. Just as your doorway to values is sure to be wrapped in scare quotes, the limitless potential of your world-oyster is decidedly dubious. Doobie-doobie-do. Do-do-do-do-do. Doobie-doobie-die...
Comments (7)
This album ruled my world back in '85. It still sounds so good. I'd like to be 15 again, for a day.
I only had access to a small handful of albums before, well, really before the late nineties, and this wasn't one of them. Fortunately, I was able to hear some of the songs on the radio back in the day. It is kind of weird, but I still have practically no albums that contain any of the music I was hearing on the radio around this time, even though some of it is very, very dear to me. I'm not so certain about 15, but I would jump at a chance to do another day in '85.
I must drag my old vinyl out, 85 was a dangerous time for me, not that keen to relive it apart from being a new Dad
A pretty big departure from The Hurting, an incredible album, a little smoother and more mainstream, but I think I romanced gal or two with this album.
Hope the "you" you refer to as "hopelessly despondent" is a general one and not U.
I'm a little tired, and sometimes my mom says I'm hopeless, but yeah, I meant the general type of you, like they do in the motivational posters. Hang in there, baby! And failing that, then just keep on truckin'...
I was thinking about your post further as I walked home last night. Mostly about whether I interpreted the lyrics as you do. As I did, more of the lyrics as I remember, them came to me:
Welcome to your life, there's no turning back
then later
make the most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world.
So, I guess I see them as more of seize the day kind of msg than downer of damn look at my life, but even if the view is unpalatable then get motivated to make the right changes.
I agree that the lyrics are most likely intended to encourage one to seize the day and celebrate life, expressing an ethos of positivity towards existence and an acceptance of its transience as one of it's greatest virtues. The part that makes it sad is that I both recognize and agree with the message, but somehow can't bring myself to embody it. I was being disingenuous when I said that I didn't want to consider the reasons I found the song sad, as I had spent plenty of time considering the reasons, and what I was really going out of my way to not say was that I didn't want to admit to them.
More than anything, though, I just appreciate the fact that the song has a powerful impact on me, and I can live with the fact that I can't completely come to terms with it on a philosophical level. Also, one of the best homophone mistakes I ever saw was when a woman described The World Without Us as a book about what would happen "if humans suddenly seized to exist." I revisited the mental image created by that phrase dozens of times, each time it doing wonders for my mood.