Episode Overview
Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Bradley Morgan
Guest: Max Brzezinski (author of Under Pressure: A Song by David Bowie and Queen, Duke UP, 2025)
Date: December 19, 2025
This episode features music writer Max Brzezinski discussing his new book, Under Pressure: A Song by David Bowie and Queen. The conversation dives deep into the song’s anthemic status, the history and transformation of the anthem as a concept in the twentieth century, and the collaborative, sometimes combative, creation between Bowie and Queen. The episode offers nuanced analysis of the song’s lyrical, musical, and cultural resonance, situating Under Pressure in a lineage of anthems and pop music’s shifting forms of collectivity.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. The Book and the Anthem as a Concept
[02:02–04:01]
- Focus: Brzezinski’s book examines Under Pressure as a modern anthem and what “anthem” means in late 20th century culture.
- The Duke Singles series asks writers to intensely study one song (like 33⅓ but for singles).
- Brzezinski sees Under Pressure as striving "to galvanize a new sense of community in the world, that when the old sort of belief in communities had really fallen to the wayside by 1981" [02:48].
2. Anthems of the Early 20th Century
[04:01–06:13]
- Early anthems (national, religious, corporate) unified large collectives and projected vision/future.
- Examples: "Star Spangled Banner", "Rule Britannia", IBM’s company anthem.
"Large collective institutions need theme songs not only to represent what's already there, but to project a vision of a glorious future for that community." – Brzezinski [05:29]
3. Crisis of the Anthem—The 1960s–1980s
[06:46–11:36]
- After WWII, faith in huge utopian collective projects waned; American ideal focused on autonomy.
- 1960s: global revolutionary movements but also fragmentation. The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” and Stockhausen’s attempts at world “anthem” seen as reaching for new kinds of unity.
- 1970s/80s: Pop music anthems either became hyper-specific ("anthems for our little subculture") or generic ("We Are the World"—an anthem with "no teeth") [09:50].
4. The Feedback Loop: Collectives and Music
[11:49–14:51]
- Changes in social structure paralleled changes in pop anthems—movements became "niche," reflected in the proliferation of subcultural anthems (punk, early rap).
"...reciprocal process. The base of community changes ... which then feeds back into the communities themselves." – Brzezinski [11:52]
5. Anthems and Counter-Anthems: Hendrix & Queen
[15:13–17:30]
- Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” exemplifies counter-anthem, embedding “the sound of warfare” to comment on Vietnam, showing “how something can carry, in form, a political message.”
- Brian May’s guitar version of "God Save the Queen" was inspired by Hendrix but “has no teeth… a performance to show how good he is at guitar” compared to Hendrix’s subversion [16:45].
6. Anthemic vs. Anthem
[19:03–21:11]
- Music critic Lester Bangs first used “anthemic” (1971 Trog’s review); the term refers to songs with “the form of an anthem” but with “the stakes pulled way down”—arousing but without a larger vision.
7. Bowie vs. Queen: Two Approaches to the Anthem
[21:51–25:44]
- Contrast between Bowie's "Heroes" (“a rousing, beautiful song, but like, it's not made to make you feel good... its dreams are very modest and hedged”) and Queen’s "We Are the Champions" (“just focus on the music… music made to move masses… has no ideological purpose”) [22:50–24:50].
8. “Combative Collaboration”—Making Under Pressure
[25:44–28:29]
- Created through both playful improvisation and contentious studio editing (“Queen wanted to make a Queen song. Bowie wanted to make a Bowie song. They produced something ... a compromise...”).
- The “cut and paste” process gave the song its unique hybrid structure.
9. Keywords in Under Pressure: “Pressure”
[28:47–31:15]
- “Pressure” evokes the feeling that world-historical forces “have somehow gotten under your skin.”
"You don't quite know if your feelings are organic or if they're somehow produced by the world system..." [29:30]
- Related to late capitalism and post-1970s anxieties, explored in other songs like Toots & the Maytals’ “Pressure Drop” and The Selecter’s “Too Much Pressure.”
10. Unity and Difference in the Song’s Structure
[31:15–34:05]
- Under Pressure eschews the totalizing, collective unity of old anthems, instead reflecting variable personal experiences of “pressure.”
- Utilizes a duet (the minimal social unit) rather than large-scale call-and-response, reflecting a “more modest” sense of collectivity.
11. Defining “People” in the Song
[37:21–39:58]
- The word "people" in the song is "capacitious," summing up multiple scales of relationship—from couple to every member of the global community.
- Brzezinski notes, “there’s power in them just naming all the different ways people relate...as an aggregate of possible community in the future.”
12. Bowie and Freddie: Dual Perspectives and Vocal Interplay
[39:58–42:10]
- Freddie is the “emotive worshiper,” Bowie the “gloomy analyst.” Their coming together (“let me out” moment) is musically hopeful amidst lyrical gloom.
13. Demo Version: People as Characters
[42:10–45:02]
- Early drafts had more explicit, character-driven vignettes; these were cut for a more universal and less “corny” effect.
14. People on the Street, The Changing City
[45:02–50:49]
- Streets lose centrality in culture due to deindustrialization, white flight, suburbs, media; reflected in Bowie, Mercury, and contemporaries.
- Under Pressure’s treatment is “tentative,” unlike Springsteen or The Clash—“this is a space where something new can happen, but we don’t quite know what yet” [49:22].
15. Bird’s Eye Creation—Strengths and Weaknesses
[50:49–53:12]
- By avoiding realism and easy moral contrasts, the song’s grand sweep is both its “strength and weakness”—evocative, but risks generality.
16. Love as a Reinvented Anthemic Theme
[53:12–56:03]
- Under Pressure connects multiple love types, not elevating one over another—romantic, platonic, communal, self-love. It’s a “vision” that’s “shot through with desire and love” even in dire contexts.
“What the song is really trying to do is find all the forms of love that are still possible, even in dire situations..." [55:18]
17. Relevance and Legacy
[56:03–59:09]
- Sonically ahead of its time (famous bassline, cross-genre duality).
- Thematically prescient—naming the pervasiveness of anonymous, systemic “pressure”, and the importance of “care” and collectivity in modern atomized life.
“The way it put its finger on the problems...when there’s no real compelling institutional structure, bonding people together was very prescient...” [58:34]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On the Modern Anthem:
“Under Pressure…represents a success…to write a new sort of anthem that would be believable, be able to galvanize a new sense of community…when the old sort of belief in communities had…fallen to the wayside by 1981, the song was recorded.” —Brzezinski [02:36]
-
On “Pressure” in Modern Life:
“Pressure is…the collapse between outside world systems…and your own experience…you don’t quite know where the forces that are controlling your life are coming from.” —Brzezinski [29:41]
-
On the Song’s Structure:
“The duet, I think, is the minimal structural form that an anthem can take and still be believable. Maybe the large call and response kind of starts to feel phony or totalitarian…” —Brzezinski [34:19]
-
On Defining ‘People’:
“[The song is] just naming…all the different ways people relate to each other in everyday life…and talking about that as an aggregate of possible community in the future.” —Brzezinski [39:36]
-
On Love as Reinvented Anthem:
“The song manifests…this idea that everything is kind of shot through with desire and love, and people are calling out to each other…to help one another…even in dire situations.” —Brzezinski [55:24]
-
On the Song’s Enduring Relevance:
“The concept of pressure…obtains more and more…you have these amorphous structures of capitalism and government that somehow feel to be inside you…but you can’t put your finger on where their centers of power are anymore. That pervasive sense…has only proven to be more and more true as time has gone on.” —Brzezinski [58:44]
Suggested Listening Guide — Key Timestamps
- [02:02] — Book’s main thesis on anthem and community
- [04:01 – 06:13] — The anthem’s historic role
- [11:49] — How changing collectives changed music
- [15:13] — Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” and the political form of anthems
- [21:51] — Bowie’s “Heroes” vs. Queen’s “We Are the Champions”
- [25:44] — "Combative collaboration" that produced Under Pressure
- [28:47] — Meaning of “pressure” in the song
- [34:05] — Duet format vs. call-and-response in traditional anthems
- [39:58] — Freddie as emotive, Bowie as analyst; the blend in “let me out”
- [45:28] — Changing meaning of “street” in late 20th-century culture
- [53:21] — Reinventing love as an anthemic value
- [56:22] — Under Pressure’s prescience, ongoing relevance
Summary & Takeaways
Brzezinski’s Under Pressure provides a compelling framework for understanding the shifting role of the anthem in modern pop, situating the collaboration between Bowie and Queen as an imperfect, yet enduring attempt to articulate collective feeling in a fractured world. The song’s focus on “pressure,” collective and individual “people,” reimagined “love,” and its hybrid structure (duet, studio cut-and-paste), are seen as attempts to forge new connections—musical, cultural, and social—when grand narratives and mass movements no longer seem viable.
Anyone interested in the history of pop, the evolution of collectivity, and the ways “anthems” can still matter in atomized societies will find both Brzezinski’s book and this interview rich, provocative, and ultimately hopeful in their search for new meanings in modern music.