Did Tears For Fears steal a line from The Clash for their defining hit?
Music, as an art form, is an ever-evolving community of creatives, and those artists often use each other for inspiration. So, what might initially come across as plagiarism or theft can often be chalked up to pastiche or mutual inspiration. This is certainly true for punk pioneers The Clash, who seemed to soak up inspiration in every aspect of the arts. A recurring source of inspiration for the band was the cinema, with film inspiring multiple iconic Clash anthems, which in turn inspired the next generation of artists, like Tears for Fears.
Emerging from Somerset in 1981, Tears for Fears didn’t take long to establish themselves as titans of new wave and pop rock in the UK. Tracks like ‘Everybody Wants to Rule The World’, ‘Shout’, and the melancholic masterpiece ‘Mad World’ earned the duo colossal mainstream success and set them apart from the rest of the hit parade during that period. Part of their unique appeal came from the duo’s expansive range of influences, which included a healthy appreciation for the sounds of the late 1970s mod revival, as well as 2 Tone ska and, of course, The Clash.
Despite rising to prominence during the first wave of the UK punk scene, The Clash were always a little more expansive in sound than their contemporaries. In addition to abrasive, anti-authority anthems which typified the DIY attitude of the punk explosion, the band also drew from Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and dub, in addition to rockabilly, jazz, and hip-hop as their discography progressed.
This extensive range of musical influences managed to keep The Clash’s material fresh and compelling for far longer than the punk scene lasted. However, a recurring avenue of inspiration for the Joe Strummer-fronted outfit was not musical at all, and in fact centred around the silver screen. One such example of the band’s cinematic inspiration came on the much-maligned Combat Rock track ‘Red Angel Dragnet’, which is indebted to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. However, perhaps the most beloved example is ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’.
Based on Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now, with the song title referring to a line of dialogue spoken by Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, the song is told from the perspective of a Viet Cong soldier. Complete with profound musings on the global military-industrial complex and its detrimental effect on humanity, the song features light-and-breezy instrumentation, drawing upon jazz, lounge, and dub reggae in a typically effortless fashion.
Not only is the track the standout of Sandinista!, but it also forms one of the band’s finest moments, perfectly encapsulating their profound and politically active songwriting talents as well as their endlessly broad musical repertoire. Seemingly, some of the song’s most notable fans included Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal, otherwise known as Tears For Fears, so much so that the pair ended up borrowing a line from the song.
“Everybody wants to rule the world, must be something we get from birth,” sings Mick Jones in The Clash track. Five years later, Tears for Fears reached number two in the singles chart with a track titled ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’, which quickly became their defining moment as a band.
While the pop-rock masterpiece doesn’t bear much resemblance to ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’ aside from that one line, the similarity was enough for Joe Strummer to jokingly tell Orzabal, “You owe me a fiver” when they were once dining in the same restaurant. According to Strumer, Orzabal promptly handed him a five-pound note.
