On November 9th 1992 Faith No More released Everything's Ruined, as the third single from Angel Dust.
"It's radio friendly for sure, a pop song. But our singer always adds the unexpected and the twists." - Roddy Bottum 1992
Everything's Ruined made the top ten in our The Greatest Faith No More Song Poll, ranking at number 9 out of 105 songs. With a working title of The Carpenters Song - it has contrasting moods, euphoric choruses and melancholy verses. Also one of the only songs on Angel Dust to feature a full length guitar solo.
"There are some very strange songs on this record. A lot of them have a lot of despair in them, they're very disturbing. Everything's Ruined is a good example of that. It's one of the more straight-forward rockers we have on this album. Compare it to something like Surprise You're Dead from the last album. I think you'll see how we've changed. You can't put your finger on it, but it's there. We're getting better at playing what we're visualising." - Mike Patton 1992
Patton explained the working title's reference to easy-listening music.
"One thing I've been doing is listening to a lot of mood music, easy listening. And I've taken a lot from that. The chorus of 'Everything's Ruined' reminds me of Sinatra, Jackie Gleason." - Mike Patton 1992
The music video, directed by Kevin Kerslake, who also directed the video for Midlife Crisis, remains a fan favourite regardless of it's seemingly cheap production following the elaborate 'perfume commercial' style of A Small Victory. The extras in the video were found through a competition hosted by MTV Most Wanted.
“Oddly enough, I grew up with Billy Gould and Roddy Bottum. We were neighbours and our parents actually went to school together, so I had a life long relationship with those guys. I was also a big fan of Faith No More." - Kevin Kerslake 2016
"Warner's spent the video budget on 'Small V' and 'Midlife' so that when it came time to 'Everything's Ruined' there's wasn't much left (!!). It was our idea to take this further and make a video as cheap as humanly possible, in one of those video booths like they had at county fairs, where you sing and dance in front of a blue screen. We didn't quite get to do that, but we got it as close as possible."- Bill Gould 2012
