The Meaning Behind the Anxious Classic Rock Song “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie

With each passing day, it seems as if life can get harder and harder. None of us are getting any younger. There are worries about war, disease, technology, and those you love living with pain and anxiety. Well, that existential difficulty is the very subject of the classic rock song, “Under Pressure,” by Queen, featuring David Bowie.

But beyond the general subject matter—what is the history of the song, how did one of the all-time best collaborations come about? And what are the nitty gritty details behind its meaning and seemingly ubiquitous composition? Let’s dive in below.

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Locking Horns

In the summer of 1981, both the British-born band Queen and the British singer David Bowie were working on music at Mountain Studios (owned by Queen) in Montreux, Switzerland. Queen was working on what would become their 1982 album, Hot Space, which would include “Under Pressure.” While Bowie was working on the song, “Cat People (Putting Out Fire),” for the horror movie of the same name.

But when the collection of artists encountered one another, collaboration was in the air. Bowie recorded vocals for the song “Cool Cat” on Hot Space, though he later had his voice removed from the song, unhappy with his performance. But another collab between the group ended up staying.

In one sense, getting Queen frontman Freddie Mercury together with Bowie seems like a match made in musical heaven. But the reality of the situation was that it was a bit more rocky than one might expect. Two geniuses together don’t always lock in—sometimes, as Queen guitarist Brian May said in 2017 to Mojo, they can lock “horns.”

Asked to elaborate, May said of Mercury and Bowie, the two had a bit of a power play “in subtle ways, like who would arrive last at the studio. So it was sort of wonderful and terrible. But in my mind I remember the wonderful now, more than the terrible.”

May also told Mojo in 2008, “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.”

May added in an interview for the Days of our Lives documentary, “Suddenly you’ve got this other person inputting, inputting, inputting… he (David) had a vision in his head, and it’s quite a difficult process and someone has to back off… and eventually I did back off, which is unusual for me.”

But even prior to Queen linking up with Bowie, the rock band had been working on the song as a unit. Today, there is a widely circulated demo (available on YouTube and here below) of the song pre-Bowie influence (and without the iconic bass line or refrain hook). Check out the rudimentary version of the song, first titled, “Feel Like,” below.

The Lyrics

The song, which hit No. 1 on the U.K. Singles chart and No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100, is famous for its vocal scatting and improvising in the beginning. This speaks to both a lovely melodic and musical sense from Mercury and to its, well, quickly put-together nature. Perhaps if the group had taken even more time or not been collaborating with Bowie, different lyrics could have been born from the vocal expressions. But as it is, they are nevertheless beloved.

Written officially by Mercury, Bowie, and May, along with bassist John Deacon, drummer Roger Taylor, and piano player David Richards (all from Queen, though Richards was the band’s engineer and producer), the substance of the lyrics has to do with the world’s ability to get a person down. The pressure and anxiety that can come from all the difficulties and effort it takes to be alive.

Sings Mercury and Bowie together to open the song,

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

And in the chorus, the two belt out in unison,

It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about
Watching some good friends screaming, “Let me out!”
Pray tomorrow gets me higher
Pressure on people, people on streets

The relief for this pressure? Love and togetherness—which is the example the song offers, the band creating, singing, and recording all together.

The Bass Line

As fans of the song know well, it begins with an iconic two-note bass line (later sampled by rapper Vanilla Ice, more on that later). Since the song’s recording, there has been some dispute over who wrote the bass line and how it stuck.

While Mercury came up with much of the song, including its subject matter, with Bowie later contributing, it was the bassist John Deacon who wrote the bass riff. But upon writing it, the group went to lunch for pizza and Deacon essentially forgot what he’d played. Thankfully, Roger Taylor remembered (enough of) it and they pieced it back together.

But still, there are questions. Deacon noted in 1982 in the Japanese publication Music Life that Bowie created the bass line. In other interviews, May and Taylor said it was Deacon. Bowie himself, on his own website, has said the line was written before he got involved on the track. May has also said that Bowie, not Taylor, recreated the riff after the pizza lunch. Said May in 2016 to Mirror Online, “Deacy began playing, 6 notes the same, then one note a fourth down”. After the dinner break, Bowie changed Deacon’s memory of the riff to “Ding-Ding-Ding Diddle Ing-Ding.”

In the end, the timeless bass line seems to be a product of many creative minds, as if each honing it down to perfection over the course of the studio day.

Vanilla Ice

The bass line was so catchy that it made for the quintessential sample for rapper Vanilla Ice’s 1990 hit song, “Ice Ice Baby.” But while Vanilla Ice never cleared the sample with the band or Bowie ahead of his single recording and release, he later settled with both parties out of court and Bowie and Queen’s members were given songwriting credit on the track. (Since then, other artists have covered the Queen/Bowie song, from Shawn Mendes to My Chemical Romance.)

Final Thoughts

The story of “Under Pressure” is strange, considering how powerful and well-known the track is. In one sense, it was made quickly and a bit haphazardly. In another, it seems to be infused with divine inspiration. And while there seemed to have been significant creative friction between Mercury and Bowie, perhaps it was this environmental pressure fused with the thematic pressure, that has made it the timeless classic rock hit that it is.

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