Tears for Fears

Millions of people sing "Shout" convinced that it is an exercise in primal screaming: letting out at the top of your lungs, all at once, the pain of childhood. Roland Orzabal, who wrote it, has said no. That plenty of people understand it that way, but that the song is in fact more interested in political protest, and that the allusion to the primal scream is, in his words, "a bit of a corny reference". The misunderstanding makes sense, because Tears for Fears really are named after a psychotherapy book. But the duo's biggest anthem is not a therapy session. It is a rallying cry.

Bath, two mothers and a book by Arthur Janov

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith met as teenagers in Bath, in the west of England, and there is a biographical coincidence that explains a good deal of what came afterwards: both were the middle child of three siblings, both grew up raised by their mothers and both had absent fathers. Before the duo they played together in a mod revival band called Graduate, which went nowhere. The definitive name came out of Prisoners of Pain, the book the psychologist Arthur Janov published in 1980. Janov was the man behind primal therapy, the idea that the repressed pain of childhood has to be relived and screamed out so that it stops giving orders. That is where the name comes from, and that is also where the misunderstanding that has followed the duo ever since comes from: the suspicion that everything they did would be therapy set to music.

1985, with the figures in hand

Songs from the Big Chair came out in 1985 and put them everywhere. "Shout" reached number four in Britain and number one in the United States, where it stayed for three weeks. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" reached number two in the United Kingdom and number one in the United States as well. It is worth writing it down with that level of detail, because the rounded-off version of this story tends to hand them two British number ones they never had.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is the other case of a song that sounds like the opposite of what it says: light, danceable, with that highway trot, and underneath a disenchanted lyric about power and about how little any of it lasts. Before that came "Mad World", from 1982, number three in the United Kingdom, a dry look at everyday life. Almost twenty years later Michael Andrews re-recorded it with Gary Jules for Donnie Darko — in that order: Andrews signed the soundtrack and Jules supplied the voice — it was released as a single in 2003 and was a British number one that Christmas.

What Orzabal says "Shout" says

Here is the point that is almost always told backwards. The popular reading of "Shout" is the therapeutic one: an invitation to scream in order to heal, the record turned into a couch. Orzabal has spent decades correcting it. He has explained that many people believe the song is about the primal scream, that he is more interested in political protest, and that he finds the reference to the primal scream a bit corny. It is not a nuance from some late interview: it is the author saying which of the two songs he wrote.

And the difference is no small thing. A song about healing is an intimate song: each person alone with their pain. A song about protesting is a public song: it is sung against someone, in the street, with others alongside. The chorus is the same and the addressee changes completely. That the whole world preferred the first reading says something about the world, not about the song.

The split that dissolved nothing

Curt Smith left in 1991, after years of tension, and here is another stretch that tends to be told wrong. Tears for Fears did not break up: Orzabal went on using the name on his own and released Elemental in 1993 and Raoul and the Kings of Spain in 1995 under it. The reconciliation came around the year 2000 and the reunion record is Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, from 2004. The Tipping Point, from 2022, was not the reunion: it was their first album in seventeen years, which is a different thing and a good deal less romantic.

That record does carry a mourning. Caroline Orzabal, Roland's wife, died in 2017 after years of depression and alcohol dependence, as he himself has said in public. The young man who at twenty had turned a book about primal therapy into a band name had to write, forty years later, about a pain that no longer allowed for metaphors.

What to remember

Tears for Fears made stadium pop with a rare density: enormous melodies on top, constant unease underneath. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" sounds like summer and talks about power. "Mad World" sounds like very little and says a good deal. The whole catalogue rests on an idea that in the eighties was not obvious: that a song made for the radio can also think.

And "Shout" is best heard the other way round from the way it is heard. It is not rebellion hiding an invitation to heal underneath: it is a protest that the world preferred to hear as therapy. Orzabal has repeated it so many times that by now it hardly matters, because the song stopped belonging to him long ago. But when the author has spent forty years explaining what it was he wrote, the least one can do is take him at his word.

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Sources

Tears for Fears is a British duo formed in Bath, England, by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, who met in their teens; both were the middle child of three siblings, raised by their mothers and with absent fathers. Before the duo they were members of the band Graduate. The name comes from a phrase in the book "Prisoners of Pain" (1980), by the psychologist Arthur Janov, the driving force behind primal therapy. "Mad World" was released in 1982 and reached number three in the United Kingdom; the version by Michael Andrews with Gary Jules was recorded for "Donnie Darko" in 2001, released as a single in 2003 and was a British number one that Christmas. The album "Songs from the Big Chair" (1985) included "Shout", number four in the United Kingdom and number one in the United States for three weeks, and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", number two in the United Kingdom and number one in the United States. Roland Orzabal has stated that, despite the usual reading of "Shout" as an allusion to primal therapy, the song is more interested in political protest, and has described that allusion as a somewhat corny reference. Curt Smith left the group in 1991; Orzabal continued under the same name and released "Elemental" (1993) and "Raoul and the Kings of Spain" (1995). The two were reconciled around the year 2000 and their reunion album was "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending" (2004); "The Tipping Point" (2022) was their first album in seventeen years. Caroline Orzabal, wife of Roland Orzabal, died in 2017 after years of depression and alcohol dependence, as he himself has recounted. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Billboard, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, the Official Charts Company, Wikipedia and other coverage.

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