Let Me Out...

In 1981, Queen and David Bowie released "Under Pressure." In his article "The True Story Behind Queen with David Bowie, 'Under Pressure,'"Jim Beviglia writes that the song almost didn't happen, "yet the song somehow married the best traits of these wildly disparate artists to create a huge success." Beviglia goes on to argue, "You can hear the song as a kind of battle of wills between the two men [David Bowie and Freddie Mercury], or at least the characters that they were playing in the song. Bowie is the voice of doom... Mercury plays the pained victim."

Reading the article, I became really curious about aspects of the song I had missed. Song lyrics get committed deep in our memories, and we find ourselves singing along in the grocery store to something from our past, but when we slow down and truly take in the lyrics we often find a different pattern emerge. When we are focused only on the amazing bass line and the title lyrics "under pressure," we miss something so beautiful:

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?

'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 ourselves

Under pressure

The song turns out to be less about pressure and more about love. Recognizing the pressure we are under, while acknowledging love is the answer to so many problems.

Slowing down to appreciate the lyrics is a lesson for life as well. Showing up with love in the hardest places is the cure for the pressure. If your body is screaming in these days "LET ME OUT!" - lean into why you do what you do, and how love might guide you on your busiest of days.