Queen - Under Pressure
Under Pressure is a 1981 song recorded by Queen and David Bowie, featured on Queen's 1982 album Hot Space.
The song reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. It was also number 31 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s.
The song was played live at every Queen concert from 1981 until the end of Queen's touring career in 1986.
It is recorded on the live albums Queen Rock Montreal and Queen at Wembley.
The song was included on some editions of Queen's first Greatest Hits compilations, such as the original 1981 Elektra release in the US.
It is included on the band's compilation albums Greatest Hits II, Classic Queen, and Absolute Greatest as well as the compilation Best of Bowie.
Queen had been working on the song under the title "Feel Like" but were not yet satisfied with the result.
David Bowie had originally come to Mountain Studios in order to sing backing vocals on another Queen song, "Cool Cat", which would end up being edited out since he was not satisfied with it. Once he got there, they worked together for a while and wrote the song.
The final version that became "Under Pressure" evolved from a jam session that Bowie had with the band at Queen's studio in Montreux, Switzerland; therefore it was credited as co-written by the five musicians. The scat singing that dominates much of the song is evidence of the jam-beginnings as improvisation.
According to Queen bassist John Deacon (as quoted in a French magazine in 1984), however, the song's primary musical songwriter was Freddie Mercury — though all contributed to the arrangement.
Brian May recalled to Mojo magazine in October 2008 that, "It was hard, because you had four very precocious boys and David, who was precocious enough for all of us. David took over the song lyrically. Looking back, it's a great song but it should have been mixed differently. Freddie and David had a fierce battle over that. It's a significant song because of David and its lyrical content."
The earlier, embryonic version of the song without Bowie, "Feel Like", is widely available in bootleg form, and was written by Queen drummer Roger Taylor.
There has been some confusion about who created the song's bassline. John Deacon said (in Japanese magazine Musiclife in 1982, and in the previously mentioned French magazine) that David Bowie had created it.
In more recent interviews, Brian May and Roger Taylor have credited the bass riff to Deacon. Bowie, on his website, said that the bassline was already written before he became involved.
Roger Taylor, in an interview for the BBC documentary Queen: the Days of Our Lives, stated that Deacon had indeed created the bassline, stating that all through the sessions in the studio he had been playing the riff over and over; he also claims that when the band returned from dinner Deacon had, amusingly, forgotten the riff, but fortunately Taylor was still able to remember it.
The lyrics:
Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets
It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, "Let me out!"
Tomorrow gets me higher
Pressure on people - people on streets
Chippin' around, kick my brains 'round the floor
These are the days - it never rains but it pours
People on streets - people on streets
It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, "Let me out!"
Tomorrow gets me higher, higher, higher...
Pressure on people - people on streets
Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don't work
Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn
Why, why, why?
Love
Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking
Can't we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?..
'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure
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