Duran Duran: Ordinary World Meaning

Song Released: 1993

Covered By: Red (2010), Noah Mac (2017)

Ordinary World Lyrics

Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Aug 4th 2011 !⃝

   This song signifies that everything changes in this world we live in and nothing is constant. In addition, the song conveys that we should learn how to cope up and adapt to those changes.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   Duran Fan

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   Jun 22nd 2005 !⃝

   Simon LeBon wrote this song after a childhood friend passed away. He says, "As I try to make my way to the ordinary world I will learn to survive." He means he will prevail, and press forward, continue living his life.

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   Duran Fan

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   Nov 18th 2005 !⃝

   Simon says in the "Live From London" DVD, that his friend became a cocaine addict and died on a night in 1986 when they were planning on meeting, although Simon would not make it. He wrote, "Do You Beleive in Shame?" that night, and carried a bit of sadness over feeling partially responsible for his friend's death. In 1993, he wrote Ordinary World, as closure.
4. anonymous

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   Apr 23rd 2023 !⃝

   An Acacia tree is something to sit by if the marketplace ends and ask whether the people want ot be sustained in modest comfort.
5. strummer

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   Jan 28th 2023 !⃝

   But I won't cry for yesterday
   There's an ordinary world
   Somehow I have to find
   And as I try to make my way
   To the ordinary world
   I will learn to survive
   
   Makes me think about regret about the past, and mental illness/addiction. Addiction is all about inhabiting a special, wonderful world in your head, with all your receptors on tilt. Freedom from addiction is living in an ordinary world, surviving and thriving in it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. anonymous

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   Jul 23rd 2020 !⃝

   Before I read the lyrics, I thought the song was about the band not being ultra-famous anymore, and dealing with being "ordinary" again. Kind of a melancholy longing for the days of stardom.
7. anonymous

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   Mar 19th 2020 !⃝

   To me the song can be about a lost love but it is also about living in a world where war or some pandemic arises and it throws the ordinary out. The song is about wanting to go back to an ordinary world.
8. anonymous

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   Dec 21st 2019 !⃝

   A bye bye to addiction obviously. See the first comment and try looking beyond the obvious metaphor.
9. anonymous

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   Dec 19th 2018 !⃝

   Ordinary World by Duran Duran is a very clear lyrics. I think they were a couple before and now they ended their relationship. He loves her and at the same she is his best friend. He is alone inside his place and he still miss her. He tells himself he will survive without her and live an ordinary world. I think the latest comment, sort of explained it as well.
   
   - The person who made comments on songs recently
10. anonymous

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    Dec 19th 2018 !⃝

    it's about losing a friend/loved one through a fight or death.
    About the desire for an ordinary life when possibility does not seem to be that way.
    But above all: about letting go of your own drama because here besides the news of holy war and holy need,ours is just a little sorrowed talk.
11. anonymous

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    Jul 2nd 2018 !⃝

    this song is about the loss of a friend.
    in the first part the narrator sees and hears his friend everywhere,but gradually as the song progresses he realises that the friend is gone and that life must go on-with or without the friend
12. anonymous

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    Nov 15th 2016 !⃝

    The video (if it does reflect the written meaning rather than a producer's fantasy) shows a characters from a financial class (2% of the population?) that is very different from those of us from an 'ordinary world' This 'other world is a place where money and the means to display its materialistic lifestyle is very important to them but it is not a satisfying place.
    
    When you get to see that reality, you long for an 'ordinary world'.
13. anonymous

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    Mar 7th 2014 !⃝

    I believe Ordinary Word is talking about the lose of a friend and how they are trying to get over the lose and how they will see them in heaven.
14. anonymous

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    Jun 19th 2012 !⃝

    I'm not very good at interperating but I think it may be about him loosing a friend. Idk
15. anonymous

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    Jul 24th 2011 !⃝

    The woman is a bride, representing culture since we behave as our culture shapes us. That is the ordinary world. This song is questioning the opposition between marriage -as a cultural imposition- and the lack of values such as friendship, which are not reinforced in this ordinary world culture. This song is claiming that we should go back to our essence (emotional, erotic and intellectual) which is overwhelmed by the alienating nature of culture. Learn to survive but live according to your essence.
16. anonymous

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    Jun 4th 2011 !⃝

    When you are in love, you are not in the ordinary world. You see the world as you are, and love lifts you up to heights you cannot reach in the ordinary world. When your love dies, you have to return to the ordinary world in order to regain your footing. It takes time, as your memory is still "up there" where you want to stay, and cannot, as your love has gone.

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