"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a new wave and synth-pop song with lyrics that detail the desire humans have for control and power and centre on themes of corruption.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" has been covered extensively since its release, most notably by New Zealand singer Lorde for the soundtrack to the film adaptation of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

According to Orzabal, the final line in the song's chorus, originally written as "Everybody wants to go to war", contributed to his indifference towards the track.

[4] Orzabal's unimpressed reaction to the track during their songwriting sessions prompted Hughes to convince him to record it, in a calculated effort to garner American chart success.

After completing their sessions at 6 p.m., they would spend an hour reviewing each recording many times; this helped Orzabal to create the song's guitar figure and change its title.

[5] Orzabal acknowledged that the shuffle beat used in the song was "alien" to their way of writing music, stating it was "jolly rather than square and rigid in the manner of "Shout", but it continued the process of becoming more extrovert."

"[6] "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was first released on 22 March 1985[1] through Phonogram, Mercury and Vertigo Records as the third single from Songs from the Big Chair.

[22] According to Joe Strummer (of The Clash) in a 1988 interview, he was in a restaurant and saw Orzabal, whereupon he told him that "you owe me a fiver", explaining that the title of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was an exact lift of the first line of the middle eight in "Charlie Don't Surf".

[25][26] In 2017, Tal Rosenberg of Pitchfork stated that its lyrics could be applied in different scenarios such as the environment ("Turn your back on mother nature"), short-lived financial success ("Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure/Nothing ever lasts forever"), dictatorial rule ("Even while we sleep/We will find you"), and the Cold War ("Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down").

A writer for The Economist called the track "a Cold War anthem" and noted its "timeless message", stating that "the song's lyrics speak to the anxieties of every age".

[31] They mentioned that they discussed the Cold War with "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and Songs from the Big Chair but that was the "U.S. and Russia then, and now the concern is more with the U.S. and [North] Korea.

"[31] Consequence of Sound editor Michael Roffman praised the group for being able to produce a "timeless and influential composition" with minimal effort.

Roffman also noted that "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was appropriate when it was first released, calling it a "meditative commentary on an era that was so corrupt economically and spiritually.

"[25] AllMusic's Stanton Swihart expressed in his retrospective review that the group "perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the mid-'80s while impossibly managing to also create a dreamy, timeless pop classic.

[2] In their review for the best albums of the 1980s, Eric Henderson from Slant Magazine stated that the song "seems like one of the great indictments of the materialism and false triumphalism of the decade.

"[33] "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was voted the 25th best single in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1985 with 17 points, sharing the spot with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Don't Come Around Here No More" (1985) and Sade's "Smooth Operator" (1984).

Korber dismissed the song's vague lyrics but praised its complex melodic structure, saying it was "both the perfect representation of its time and a timeless composition".

[40] "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was banned for broadcast by the BBC for the duration of the first Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991) due to the song's political themes.

[42][43][44] In the United Kingdom, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" debuted at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart, in the issue dated 24 March 1985.

[46] "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" received a quadruple platinum certification by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 18 October 2024 for 2,400,000 sales[47] and re-entered the UK Singles Chart in 2022 and 2023.

[50][51] In the United States, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" debuted at number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the issue dated 16 March 1985.

It samples a recording of BBC Radio 4 announcer Brian Perkins reading the Shipping Forecast for the North Sea region of the United Kingdom.

[65] Chris Hughes wrote about the song in the liner notes of Saturnine Martial & Lunatic (1996), saying: No matter how horrifying the conditions may really be, the voice reading the shipping forecast is deliberately calm and relaxed.

[64]"Pharaohs" shipping forecast read by Brian Perkins: There are warnings of gales in Viking, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Fisher, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Finisterre, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, Fair Isle, Faroes and Southeast Iceland.

Smith is then shown singing in the desert wearing black sunglasses as many of the dirt bike and ATV riders approach from behind him and pass to either side.

The reworked single was released in May 1986 as the theme song for the Sport Aid campaign, a charitable event held to raise money for famine relief in Africa.

[119] Conversely, Stereogum editor Nate Patrin criticized the chorus and production but praised the "aloof strangeness" in Lorde's vocals for being able to carry the song "past the usual Dramatic Reenvisionings".