Artists
Musicians featured in this piece are:
David Bowie – vocals, synthesizer
Freddie Mercury – vocals, piano, Hammond organ
Brian May – guitar
John Deacon – bass guitar
Roger Taylor – drums, vocals
David Richards – piano
Written by David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, John Deacon & Brian May. Produced by Queen & David Bowie, recorded July and September 1981 at Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland (Queen’s own studio), with final mixing at Power Station, New York.
The song grew out of pure chance: David Bowie had scheduled studio time at Mountain Studios to record “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” with Giorgio Moroder while Queen was working next door on what became Hot Space. Bowie came in initially just to add backing vocals to a different Queen track, “Cool Cat” (later scrapped), but the session turned into a loose jam that evolved out of an unfinished Queen song called “Feel Like,” written by Roger Taylor. Accounts differ on authorship of specific elements — bassist John Deacon is widely credited with the song’s instantly recognizable bass riff, though Bowie has said it already existed before he got involved, and Freddie Mercury has been credited as the primary songwriter by his own bandmates, with Bowie largely shaping the final lyrics. The mixing process was famously contentious, with Mercury and Bowie clashing fiercely over the final version. Decades later, the song’s bassline became the uncredited basis for Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” resulting in an out-of-court settlement that gave Queen and Bowie both compensation and a songwriting credit.
David Bowie and Queen – Under Pressure Lyrics
Mmm num ba de
Dum bum ba be
Doo buh dum ba beh beh
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
Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da
That’s OK
That’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
Day day de mm hm
Da da da ba ba
OK
Chippin’ around, kick my brains ’round the floor
These are the days: it never rains but it pours
Ee do ba be
Ee da ba ba ba
Um bo bo
Be lap
People on streets
Ee da de da de
People on streets
Ee da de da de da de da
It’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends screaming
“Let me out!”
Tomorrow gets me higher, higher, high!
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, love, love, love, love
Insanity laughs under pressure
We’re breaking
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, 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
To listen to other songs from the Teleskop 18 program and the full program, click here.