Music Review // A Short Walk to Pluto "Everybody Wants to Rule The World"

                                       

As this is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists, I think we do need a little history lesson first because of the timing of it all.  "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" appeared on Tears for Fears second album which was released in 1985.   Twenty years later in 2005, the duo of JamisonParker released a cover of this very song for a Fearless Records "Punk Goes 80s" compilation.  And now, nearly twenty more years later, A Short Walk to Pluto has released their version of this song.

While I understand that other artists have likely covered this song throughout the near forty years it has been around, that is just the one cover which really hit me and plus when I interviewed JamisonParker and asked them about this song they didn't make the same connection with it as I did, which is with The Dennis Miller Show.   In any case, maybe some new sort of political talk show can come forth and use this cover in their closing credits to bring this song even more full circle because the world is still acting like a game of Risk.

The idea of wanting to rule the world seems to be something that is constantly happening.  It doesn't seem like there has ever been a time when everyone has just been cool with ruling their own countries.  It always feels like some country is on the verge of trying to overthrow some other country and then the United Nations gets involved and it's this whole situation.  Sadly, this feels like it will be this way until the end of time and in another twenty years I bet someone else covers this song.

Not just Tears for Fears but this song specifically is so timeless.  A Short Walk to Pluto does a great job covering with the pacing, the melody and even busting out the sax solo near the end.  It's a very good tribute because it's not making the song unrecognizable but yet it also has that touch where you can tell it's not the original.  I think taking a slow song and covering it fast is okay, you know when artists really change things up, but the best covers are the ones that are right on that line between being so close to the original and yet not, which is what A Short Walk to Pluto has done here.