Max Brzezinski, "Under Pressure: A Song by David Bowie and Queen" (Duke UP, 2025)

Summary

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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.

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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]

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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]

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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

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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.

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Transcript

[Marshall Poe]

Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Poe. I'm the editor of the New Books Network, and if you're listening to the New Books Network, I imagine you like to read and I'm wondering if you have a goal to read more this year. How about a goal to read more of what you love and less of what you don't? The Proofread Podcast is here to help. Hosted by Casey and Tyler, two English professors and avid readers with busy lives, Proofread helps you decide what books are worth spending your precious time on and what books aren't. They feature 15 minute episodes that give you everything you need to know about a book to decide if you should read it or skip it. You'll get a brief synopsis, fun and witty commentary, no spoilers and no sponsored reviews. It's just what Casey and Tyler think. Life's too short to read a bad book. So subscribe to the Proofread podcast today. And by the way, there's a new season coming. Thanks very much.

[Max Brzezinski]

Every drop of Jack Daniels is mellowed through sugar maple charcoal, giving Jack its smooth taste. That's what makes Jack Jerry, please drink responsibly. Jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. John Legend, Sheryl Crowe, Elvis Costello and Alanis Morissette star in the MGM original series, Words and Music. Iconic artists share intimate performances and the stories behind the songs. New episodes, Sundays on mgm.

[Marshall Poe]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Bradley Morgan]

Hello. Welcome to New Books and Music, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Bradley Morgan and I'm joined today by my guest, Max Brzezinski. Max is a writer and author of Vinyl A Guide to Record Collecting Now. And his latest book is Under Pressure, a song by David Bowie and Queen, and is an installment of the Single series published by Duke University Press. Max, thanks so much for joining me today.

[Max Brzezinski]

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

[Bradley Morgan]

So, to get things started, could you share with us what your book is about?

[Max Brzezinski]

So Under Pressure, obviously, is about the song Under Pressure by David Bowie and Queen. And it's part of the Duke Singles series which asked authors of music writers to write a single song or a single book on a single song, you know, kind of in the. In the spirit of the 33 and a third series by Bloomsbury where you. You write a whole book about a single album, you know, but this is even more granular. And so the book Under Pressure is really about the song status as an anthem in a historical era where anthems seem no Longer really possible or believable or co opted broken down into niche, niche cultures and really what I feel like Under Pressure. Why Under Pressure is such a significant song, What I argue in the book is that it kind of represents a success, somewhat successful. Although it's murky to write a new sort of anthem that would be believable, be able 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, the song was recorded.

[Bradley Morgan]

So as you mentioned with the single series, the idea is to analyze and explore all the different facets of a single song. And you do that for Under Pressure. And in the book you write about how the song became an anthemic cultural touchstone. But in explaining that, you contextualize it amongst the greater history of anthems throughout the 20th century. So before we get into the song, let's dive into that context a bit further. Decades before David Bowie and Queen had established themselves as popular artists, musical anthems had a particular power and purpose. What did anthems represent during the first half of the 20th century and what are some examples of those anthems?

[Max Brzezinski]

Wow. In the book, basically, anthems in the first half of the 20th century represented collective touchstones, sort of galvanizing. They're kind of galvanizing vortices for the passion and energy of popular movements. So whether it be national, which obviously goes back to the 19th and late 18th century, the national anthem, when it really was the time of nation building, or ecclesiastical anthems, which is the religious context, going farther back, the original uses of anthems were to build church communities and to galvanize the community of believers. And then obviously in the early 20th century, you had sort of transnational movements starting to begin. On the one hand, there's corporate conglomeration and so companies start writing their own anthems. Even in the early 20th century, world events like the Russian Revolution are producing their own anthems. So the anthems that you can think of, Star Spangled Banner, Rule Britannia, ibms that this is later, but still much before Under Pressure, IBM came up with their own anthem for the company. And they would sing it at all their parties. And they apparently took it somewhat seriously. So you have all these non pop music anthems that are in the background of what lead up to Under Pressure much later. And they're all based on the idea that 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. Does that answer your Question or do you want me to?

[Bradley Morgan]

No, it certainly does. That's gross. No, that's great. I think that's very satisfying and I think we can move on. So let's move on a little bit later to the 20th century, before David Boeing Queen hit the charts. Because in the late 60s and early 70s, these anthems became more ultra nationalist and traditional anthems began to lose their power and impact. And this was during a time of major structural adjustment and deindustrialization. What was happening within society and the culture at large that ushered in this shift in anthems?

[Max Brzezinski]

Right. So post World War II, so many things are happening. Europe really is struggling to get back on its feet. So it had to be bailed out by the US with the Marshall Plan, which is really a moment of US ascendancy to world power. But at the same time, America is obviously fighting the Cold War and America is becoming a sort of like anti collective place. You know, the dream is to have your house in the suburbs, things like that. So, you know, the idea of like, what it means to build to have a collective project that you can really look forward to is maybe put into question by the very ideals that are promulgated by America, which is like an individual utopia that that is happening. So that's one, that's one thing that kind of puts pressure on the collective idea of the anthem. But obviously in the six in the 60s, you not only have the American countercultural movement, you know, youth in revolt, but you have. It's like a really a world crisis. Whether you look at Vietnam, Algeria, the Chinese revolution, Cuba, everything is shifting in a revolutionary direction. But at the same time, it's hard to totalize that system anymore. So coming up with a world. So people are trying nascently to try to come up with world theme songs like the Beatles I talk about in the book all youl need is Love, they like cycle through so many languages. And all you need in the French broadcast of all you need is Love, or Stockhausen trying to come up with a version of all the world's anthems, kind of in an experimental music, concrete version. So people are think grasping towards this globalization community. But it's very nebulous in response to all the breakdowns of the 60s.

[Bradley Morgan]

So as the culture changes, it leads to pop music becoming the foundation for this new phase of anthems. You know, you mentioned all you need is love. And while the traditional anthems of the previous decades were essentially propaganda, these new pop anthems were aimed to move people in a different way. What was that.

[Max Brzezinski]

In some ways, they were. They can't break with the idea of propaganda. Even like the deracinated pop single, which, you know, you just assume is just there to make money and connect directly to an audience and their feelings, there's still a certain ethos being projected within pop anthem. So I. I don't want to lose the idea of, like, the new anthems still having an ideological component, because it's just different. Like, the new anthems are trying a lot of new anthems in the 70s, either just put the negative sign in front of the old positive anthem. So, like Curtis Mayfield, if there's a hell below, we're all going to go. It's just like it is a national anthem. It's just like everything is terrible in America. Or Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind. Kind of similar from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol. The idiot wind is I revert the lines, but Idiot Wind is blowing from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol. These are just like, yeah, there is still a collective identity and it's terrible sort of songs, but other people are just like, we can't even talk about collective existence in a pop song. So what we should really do. It kind of took two directions in the 70s and the 80s. One was like, get hyper granular, hyper specific. Just make anthems for our little subculture. You know, like a punk subculture has its own anthems or, you know, the early days of rap before it became the language of global capital. You know, these are very specific songs about the Bronx or about a very particular group of people living in a very particular place. So, you know, there are a lot of niche anthems to galvanize, like, micro communities. But the other push is just to be very generic and still hold on to the idea of the anthem, but not really put any teeth into the idea of collectivity. It's just kind of like a token, yes, we're all in this together. And that is probably culminated by We Are the World or something like that.

[Bradley Morgan]

Well, I'm glad you brought up collectives, because it wasn't just the music that changed or its impact on people, but could you tell us how collectives also changed along with this? Did one impact the other, or were these happening in parallel?

[Max Brzezinski]

They were happening in parallel. And it's kind of a recursive process. The base of community changes in some way and that changes the music, which then feeds back into the communities themselves. And so I don't know. My rough sense of what happened in the 60s, 70s and 80s is that large totalizing projects of revolution kind of were dispirited. You know, they either became captured by bureaucracy or, you know, got caught down in the slog of the Cold War or crushed by US interventionism. You know, it was not an inspiring time to have a global vision of a positive progressive community. And so I think as I was saying with anthems, people either said, well, this is just the world we're going to live in, you know, that's how it is. So we should give up on these pipe dreams and just like deal with reality as it is and be a part of these less than ideal communities that are mostly about like work and family, but have no broader vision for, you know, civic life. However you want to, you want to figure that out. That's one option. People build these very niche, rebellious communities. And I think it maps on to like political organizing at the time, you know, which very much move towards like particularist issues, which is great. You know, all these new subject positions of history were emerging at this time, you know, whether it be like the Rainbow Coalition or you know, the fight for gay rights, which was really taking, gaining a lot of power in the time, or you know, more like, maybe more smaller but more clear eyed arguments for civil rights, you know, happening in response to, you know, Reagan and all the mass movements of the time. So I think those communities kind of find a rough homology in the music. You know, if you want to be the assimilate in, into this new world order, you have the pop music for you that doesn't, that kind of eases your pain but doesn't really get too granular on what the problems are. Escapist music, which is amazing. I love escapist music too. Abba, it's one of my favorite groups. But on the other hand you have all these smaller pockets of resistance that have their own songs that galvanize that.

[Bradley Morgan]

One thing that's great about your book is that it's really rich with many different examples of anthems from this time and we don't have time to go through all of them, but I did want to ask about one. And as pop anthems became more centered in the culture, there were also counter anthems that also had an impact. And one example is Jimi Hendrix's version of the Star Spangled Banner. Could you tell us more about that?

[Max Brzezinski]

Sure. Well, that was kind of a famous flashpoint, his live performance of the Star Spangled Banner. Because what's really amazing about that song, obviously I don't need to convince anybody what a great guitar player, Hendrix is. But what's really great about that song is that he. During the Vietnam War, he really builds into the form, the sound of warfare, you know, machine guns and whatnot, into the instrumental of the Star Spangled Banner. And so, you know, in one, he's. He's like making direct reference to the. The US involvement in Vietnam in. In that anthem. But also, in a way, he's just drawing attention back to the original source of the song, which is a war song, War of 1812. And so it's this amazing moment in which a totally, like, wordless performance, just the style and form of some things, can carry in its style, not in its lyrics, a political message. I think that's why it was so powerful to people and why it was so. Continues to be powerful to people. And I kind of make the connection to Brian May's version of God Save the Queen, which he. I think he, in an interview, said that it was a tribute to Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner. He wanted to create kind of like an English analog to Hendrix's performance, but it's totally different because it's. I mean, it's an amazing guitar. He plays a lot of amazing guitar on it. And Brian May is a great guitar player. I love listening to it, but it has no teeth. It's like. It's basically a performance in which he's trying to, like, show how good he is at guitar. And so it kind of dramatizes the movement in anthems that Queen sort of represented before they met with Bowie, which was very much a commercial idea of what an anthem is. You know, they have the most famous jock jams going, I think, at this point.

[Bradley Morgan]

Oh, absolutely.

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[Bradley Morgan]

So in the book, you refer to music critic Lester Bangs use of the word anthemic in a review of the Trog single I Can't control myself from 1971 as the first use of that term in that context. And you expand by this by saying that using the term anthemic that Bangs is conceptualizing a minor anthem. What is the distinction between an anthem and a song being anthemic? And what role does anthemic come to represent in that context?

[Max Brzezinski]

Well, I think piggybacking off of what I just said about Brian May's guitar solo, that represents sort of an anthemic performance, whereas Hendrix's performance is like maybe one of the last great counter anthems, which is still an anthem. It's just within the value sign flipped for me, at least. And what it really means when anthemic really means to me, you know, the Trog song, Trogs are great. Very stupid garage band who are amazing. I mean, they sound great, Wild Thing, most famous song. But they're not singing about anything important, essentially, or. I mean, they're thinking about things that are important to people. I mean, our love logs are very important to us personally, and we can all relate. But basically the anthemic song has the form of an anthem. It still galvanizes collective sentiment and is arousing and gives you the sense of like, oh, I need to. I need to get up and do something and work in concert with people. But the minorness comes when it has no larger vision connected to it. And so it's the shell of the old anthems in terms of all the music. Still very powerful music a lot of times. Like I said, I love the Trollocs just as much as I love Hendrix or something. So it's not a value judgment in that way. But historically, it's, it's. It's kind of in. The anthemic is like the anthem with the. The stakes pulled way down.

[Bradley Morgan]

I really appreciate you going through all that with me because the historical context is very important to set up for, you know, the main topic of your book. And it's a really fascinating subject, and it got me to think differently about Under Pressure. So let's get into the guys who made the song. Prior to recording Under Pressure, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury had already become accomplished artists in the 1970s, and they shared a lot of things in, such as them both being British and having queer identities. However, they had different approaches and philosophies when it came to making music. And you frame this with two songs, Heroes by Bowie and We Are the Champions by Queen. How do those songs each represent a different aspect of the concept of an anthem?

[Max Brzezinski]

Right. So, yeah, the book starts with contrasting those. I was just so excited to think about those coming out in relatively the same time. And they're both super famous songs now. But people didn't really mess with Heroes the way they messed with the Queen stuff. And so I think what they represent, what Bowie represents, they both are kind of accepting, okay, the era of the old anthem is gone. We don't want to write these. We don't want to write big propaganda songs for the masses. But how they respond to that and the knowledge of that historical situation, I don't think they would have necessarily formulated all of this. But it's clear they're smart people and they are intuitively responding to this sort of thing. Bowie with Heroes essentially is trying to write an art song. You know, he. He brings in Robert Fripp from King Crimson and Brian Eno, who was producing, you know, and fripping Eno and made a bunch of experimental records together, of course, in the 70s. And so what he's really trying to do, he was in Berlin in this period, in the Berlin period is very arty period where he was trying to reconnect with the. The subcultures that he feel he had gotten a little far away from. He was, you know, doing a lot of drugs with Iggy Pop and hanging out in CD clubs. And so his version of the anthem is very skeptical. It's very like, oh, we can be heroes for one day. The heroes is putting quotation marks in the title, which is you might miss when you're like, if you came upon the song, just like from Jacob Dylan covering it on the Godzilla soundtrack or whatever. I don't know if they kept the quotation marks there. I can't remember. But, you know, it's become such a big song and it's taken as this rousing or old school anthem. But if you look at it, the lyrics are very depression and it's about guns firing over the Berlin Wall, you know, and lovers stealing a kiss. It's a very dour sort of song that really. I mean, its dreams are very modest and hedged. You know, like, we could have one kiss in this Cold War wasteland, and we should have no illusions that that's going to save our life or anything. But it's like a stolen. And so that's a. That's a skeptical version of the anthem. It's a very rousing, beautiful song, but, like, it's not made to make you feel good. And Queen, in response to this idea that the old anthems are kind of down and we need to create new ones, right? It's like the biggest jock jams of all time. I mean, We Are the Champions and We Will Rock. You are on the same side. They're on two sides of a flip single. And, I mean, you hear those songs. I heard those a few weeks ago at my son's baseball game. You know, you hear them all the time. And so Queen's approach was really to just, like, just focus on the music. Like, the lyrics are totally skeletal. And Brian May was like, Brian May is an astrophysicist. He was in the. In the lab, as they say in the studio, like, working on the best way for the percussion in the song to resound when it's played in an arena. It's very. I mean, it's brilliant. It's also, like, somewhat cynical. Like, this is music made to move masses, but it's just to give people hype in an arena, you know, and say it has no ideological purpose. Anybody can sing it and relate to it.

[Bradley Morgan]

You describe Under Pressure as coming together in combative collaboration because Bowie and Queen clashed while making it, and that they needed to take their own styles to produce a third style. And specifically that working together required new ways of working. With this, you write that it added a conceptual dimension to the song. Can you tell us more about that?

[Max Brzezinski]

Sure. Well, when things are going great, you're kind of in the moment, I assume, making music, you know, you're not really conceptualizing anything when you're just, like, doing something well and it's going well, you know, you're. You're in the moment. But. And there was that. Really what happened with that song was there was a moment when they were, like, in Switzerland just recording it and messing it around. Messing around where it kind of caught fire. They started doing covers, and then they're like, oh, we're having such a good time. Why don't we just write our own song? And so there was a lot of organic performance there where they're just kicking it around, having fun. But when they listened back to the tapes the next day, they're like, oh, this could actually be a very commercial song. We could probably do something with this. That was when the second reflection happened and they flew to New York. Some of the. Some of Queen, not all of Queen. I don't think Brian May was allowed to be in the mixing studio or something because he had too many opinions. And Bowie in. In the studio were mixing everything. It was very contentious and they were really deciding what the sound should be like there. And so essentially the third style they created is this sort of, you know, cut and paste song. Like, it's a very. It's a studio creation of an organic original performance. And so I think that really makes the song not. Not worse, but better. I mean, people have kind of slagged the song off. People who don't love it have talked about it as a cut and paste song. But I really think what's cool about the song is that idea that they. Because they took more time with it in the editing, that it is like a product that a lot of thought was put into and that they don't, as a result, because they were. Queen wanted to make a Queen song. Bowie wanted to make a Bowie song. They produced something that's like a compromise that. Where the Bowie and Mercury Visions don't quite gel. And I think that is one of the fascinating things that, like, once you get. You hear the song enough, you can really, like, get into the contrasts and the places where they finally meet.

[Bradley Morgan]

You write that, like all great pop Under Pressure is easy to enjoy but difficult to interpret. So in exploring its historical significance and relevancy, you focus on the song's primary keywords throughout the book. So let's start with the first. What does Pressure mean in the context of the pop anthem?

[Max Brzezinski]

Well, I think pressure for me in the context of the pop anthem means what it's like every. In Bowling Queen's historical moment. And to a large degree are historical moments still in the 70s and 80s. I think pressure is a great. Is. I argue that it's like a metaphor for what it feels like when the world feels like that there's a collapse between the outside world system of large historical forces, you know, mostly late capitalism for using stereotypical cliches. You know, a world where you don't really feel like you're an autonomous being anymore completely. And that like, world historical forces have somehow gotten under your skin. And so, you know, you could talk about Frederick Jameson saying, like, capital has colonized the imagination. You could talk about Elvis Costello Saying, put these fingerprints on my imagination. Or before Jameson, you know. And I think one of the interesting things about pop music is that it's always anticipating theory. But we can always. We can talk about that later. But in any case, like, I think pressure is really this idea that you don't quite know where the forces that are controlling your life are coming from, and if your feelings are organic or if they're somehow produced by the world system that you're in. It's very stressful. It's very unnerving. And I think Bowie in particular, on his albums of this time, is constantly working out this uncanny feeling of what it's like to live in lay capital where you. You don't quite know how much autonomy you have in a system that is so powerful.

[Bradley Morgan]

Speaking of autonomy and powerful systems, you explore other examples of anthems where pressure is central to the song, such as Pressure Drop by Toots in the Maytals and Too Much Pressure by the Selector. And race, class and geography all play major roles in the type and amount of pressure people could feel in society. And those are areas in which people have shared experiences. However you write, Under Pressure mitigates against feelings of unity. How does Under Pressure do that but still endure as an anthem?

[Max Brzezinski]

Right. I mean, I think the top line answer is just that it's such a catchy song and you can listen to it on a level that, like, is enduringly anthemic in the terms of my book, where you don't have to really, like, think about the lyrics too much. But I think it mitigates against feelings of unity. And the old idea that somebody like Sartre would say that a revolutionary movement needs to fuse together and everybody needs to have this sort of hive mind where they're all doing exactly the same thing. So I think it mitigates against that idea because it's very interesting in the different subject positions that take place in the constellation around pressure. You know, it makes space for people of different experiences, different, you know, races and classes having different levels of pressure. But I think what it tries to do is kind of like articulate every. That you can't. Everybody is experiencing pressure, and they just have different, you know, like, variable levels of relation to it. And so I think that's kind of an appealing concept for an anthem that's trying to talk to people, because no matter what level of pressure you're experiencing, everybody has pressure. I mean, I'm sure. And that's why Bill Gates could put it on his list of favorite songs. You know, Bill Gates has pressure Too on his life, but not sure. But it still leaves room for people to find their own nuggets of individual experience in it. You know, in the last chapter, I talk about how it kind of like the song rapidly shifts different points of view so you can look through the eyes of, you know, very briefly. It's only a. Like a few minute long song, but like you get views through the eyes of a witness and a victim and a citizen and a worker and somebody who's very trot him down and somebody maybe who's not so trodden down. So I think it is trying to provide you these snapshots of different modes of life and say that they're all relating to this central pounding force of.

[Bradley Morgan]

Pressure within this context of pressure in the real world. You write, Under Pressure represents a new form that responds to a different historical context. And specifically between Bowie's and Freddie's vocals, it relies on a duet and dual format. While traditional anthems were more based on a cult call on call and response. How does that framing it Under Pressure reflect the culture that the song was addressing?

[Max Brzezinski]

Well, I think, I mean, Adrienne Rich has this great poem that I might butcher the line, but she says something like, you know, more and more I feel like just any couple is a miracle. And I feel like that really capsulates the feeling of how hard it was to get find a collective sentiment that you believe in this time, even couples are kind of breaking down and being put into question. And so 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. I mean, that's what Donald Fagan from Steely Dan would probably say, that it's just. It's too repressive of individual, individual difference. And so the couple of the duet is like all you can maybe start from to like say, hey, we do have a social relationship still. The relationships do still exist and are a driving force. But, well, maybe let's just start more modestly. And so in the song, you know, the duet is really about them coming together to find some sort of relation between their two perspectives. And it all like the Hendrix national anthem. And so most of it is done through style and form, I think. And the way their voices sound and exchange tones, which is somewhat abstract, but when you listen to it, you kind of can feel it intuitively.

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[Bradley Morgan]

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[Bradley Morgan]

Thanks for that. That was really compelling because it really gave me opportunity to think about the song very differently. And so I, I want to jump to the next keyword, which is people. And when answering the question of who exactly is the subject of under pressure, you answer it as simply people, people. Not the people or even people on the street, which is the lyric of the song, but people. How are people defined in the song?

[Max Brzezinski]

Well, I think people is a capacious concept in the song. It's kind of the song has an additive logic that it's trying to come up with all the different possible options to imagine community. And so people is, you know, every couple, Bowie and Queen themselves, you know, that's people. People is the small scenes of witnessing, you know, like the relationship between somebody being victimized, somebody victimizing them, and somebody watching, you know, that comes up and like, or like the voice singing, screaming, let me out in the song, you know, these are all like micro versions of the populist question. They're all mini couples, but people also, by the end of the song expands out to like a world community essentially. And obviously this is the most like, speculative and probably the hardest for them to like fill in the, fill in the blanks on. But there is this idea that every, you know, this old 60s idea that like, that we do live in a world community and we're all part of one community despite our nationalities and our politics. But it's very speculative. And so I feel like people in the song is like the net sum of all the different levels of social relationship that are possible. And what they're really doing is just naming them as possibilities. You know, in a world where it seems like that none of these things beyond the couple are even possible and, you know, and even it seemed unlikely in Adrienne Rich that, you know, even the couple is going to hold together as, like, a solid basis for society. So I think there's some power in them just naming all the different ways people relate to each other in every day and talking about that as an aggregate of possible community in the future.

[Bradley Morgan]

When addressing the meaning of people in the song, Bowie and Queen represent different viewpoints of shared constructs, with you saying that Freddie as Queen's vocalist, is the song's emotive worshiper, while Bowie is more of the gloomy analyst. And ultimately these two perspectives combine in the song. When the vocals reach the phrase let me out, what significance does this have when considering the subject of people within the song?

[Max Brzezinski]

I think that the song kind of demonstrates. I mean, I talk about it as a duel in the. In the book, the dance metaphor is big. You know, he's talking about. Bowie's talking about the last dance in the song. And really, I think what Bowie and Freddie's performances represent is the sort of dance between these. The realism of what the context is. You know, things are pretty bleak and in a lot of ways in the 70s and early 80s. But Mercury is doing the more traditional thing of holding on to love and hope. And so I think the dance is that they do come together and their voices actually do switch somewhat. So you can't. Freddie is kind of. Well, Bowie's more doing an impersonation of Freddie at times in the song. Freddie kind of was just doing his own thing the whole time. But they do merge and exchange positions. I think there's the kind of hopeful feeling is that, like, Let Me out obviously, is like the voice of somebody that's terrorized or, like, trying to get out of a situation. But it's very hopeful in the way that the song sounds. And it's like this joyous crescendo moment where they. Where Bowie and Mercury come together and are on the same page. And so I think the form kind of sends the opposite message. The lyrics represent the dire situation and the form represents the possible transcending of that. And so the idea of a people kind of comes together in that moment.

[Bradley Morgan]

To the listener on the imagery of people and under pressure. And I didn't know this until reading your book, and I found it was fascinating. There was an early demo where people were actual Characters in an early draft of the song. Could you tell us about the characters from the demo and what writing them out meant for the song's overall theme?

[Max Brzezinski]

Sure. I got the impression that, like, in embryonic form, like, Freddy had written some lyrics for a song like this, like, under pressure. And so a lot of the characters are like, you know, people sitting on a stage and kind of feeling lonely during a performance and people trying to connect. Or like a singer that's kind of like Freddy singing what he's feeling as he's performing to a group of people. You know, like, that's obviously the way that he would have personally interacted with masses of people all at once. And so it's more rooted in his personal experience. It's less relatable in a way, that image of, like, a Freddy, like, character viewing a lonely person sitting on the stage at one of his performances or something. So there's that image there. Like, the people on the street tend to generally have a little more clearer eye. Clearer descriptions of who they are. You know, they're like, traditional. Like, not traditional, but in rock song traditional, like street urchin sort of people you might hear in a Bob Dylan song or something like that. You know, like the Ragman from Sinomobile or something like that. And the song is set in New York City in the original version. And so there are all these particulars where it's like, this turn to be this sort of, like, slice of life. And it doesn't really work in an anthem form. Like, you kind of, like, are like, who is this? And when you're just figuring out who the character is, it's like you're on to the next one. So you don't have really much emotional connection. It's a very confusing first draft, and it doesn't work as an anthem. The. More it's hard for a story with characters to really collectively galvanize people in that way, in an anthemic way. Or even when one does, I'm thinking about American pop, It also is kind of, like, corny or something. It has this corny side to it. And so what they kind of smoothed down were these, like, these slice of life vignettes. They kind of had to be sacrificed for the larger vision of the song.

[Bradley Morgan]

So to transition to the next theme of your book. The people in the lyrics of Under Pressure include people on the street. And you write that at some point in the late 20th century, people stopped assuming revolution would come from the streets and that police sought to control populations through the management of space, such as with Streets, whether they be defined as physical or abstract spaces. What accounted for the changing meaning behind the concept of the street?

[Max Brzezinski]

I'd say, you know, deindustrialization obviously took the heart out of a lot of cities. Financialization made economies more abstract and the suburbs and exurbs pushed people out away from the city centers. There was a lot of white flight from the city streets around this time. Things were becoming more bifurcated and fragmented and there was a lot of redivision of communities. And, you know, with the digital revolution on its way, the early versions of that, you know, when people our age were growing up, you know, I was born in 78, you know, so it was a lot more. People were staying inside a lot more to play video games, early video games, and watch tv, you know, so the street was no longer like central to work or play in the same way that it was in real life. And so in the popular imaginary, it also kind of lost its same centrality before recording together.

[Bradley Morgan]

You explore in the book how Bowie's and Freddie's relationship with the streets as a theme throughout their music were different. Could you tell us about those differences?

[Max Brzezinski]

Sure. I mean, they both looked at the city street as a playground, kind of like earlier in their career. It was more of like a sexually carnival esque place where they could meet people to hook up and have fun, you know, enter some like pocket of some local demimont or another. But at the same time, Bowie, I think, took the street more centrally as the place where you find new ideas and where you're really put in touch with the most cutting edge people and artworks and musical forms. And so he was always watching the street for what was next in terms of expression, both popular and artistic. He was very up on things. He was a watcher. All his songs are about watching the street, you know, and, and absorbing in style so he could kind of do something new with them. But for Freddie Mercury, it's more, it's. It's just more the, like the street of the libidinal convoy. And very early he starts like riding around in limousine's, just kind of separating himself a little bit from the street. Just like having a more traditional like 70s rock star relationship to the street as a place to like find fun, you know, I'd say that's the main.

[Bradley Morgan]

Difference in the book, you know, how other artists at that time were characterizing people on the streets in their own music, such as what Bruce Springsteen did for Nebraska or the Clash did for their music. How did under pressure conceptualize streets differently than other music?

[Max Brzezinski]

At that time, I'd say it takes a more realistic vision of the street. It's just trying to like scan the. I'd say in their own ways, the Clash and Springsteen are nostalgic for old versions of the street. Whether it be the small town main street or, you know, the big city streets. And the Clash, I think few street mostly sociologically, you know, it's just like a place where people get murdered, bad things happen, you know. On Sandinista they try to kind of open it up to a more carnivalistic feeling, this with the street, but it feels a little forced to me. But I think what Bowie and Queen are doing in Under Pressure, so trying to evaluate the street for a new sign of life. Okay, so it might not be central anymore. That might not be the central motor of all world history anymore, you know, people storming the barricades or like discovering whole new musical styles, but what use really is the street? It's still a place where people come together. And so I think the sketch Under Pressure of the street is more tentative. It's like this is a space where something new can happen, but we don't quite know what yet. Rather than try to grasp back to the past, put a nostalgic vision or a bloody minded streets or these fallen places, you're kind of just leaving a. A space open, like, okay, things can really happen on the street. But I don't think Bowie or Queen really knew what yet. You know, it's very big in the song and so I kind of kept it big in the book.

[Bradley Morgan]

The original title for Under Pressure was People on Streets. And rather than have one ultimate point of view, the original intention for the song was to present these people on the streets with a face to face narrative. And you write that. The reason this contrast was removed from the song was because Under Pressure does not allow an easy and sentimental opposition between good and evil views of different types of collectives. What are the strengths and weaknesses of an anthem that takes that sort of bird eyes approach like Under Pressure does?

[Max Brzezinski]

I say the strength is that it can get away from the pointillist perspective of just talking about two characters looking at each other in the face or something. Just the micrological, cramped sense that you're just writing about two characters that can't speak to everybody. So they're taking the bird's eye view. If you're in a plane, you can see everything, but it's all very small. So that's both the strength and the weakness of it. You can talk about these grand sweeping things, themes People, streets. But the danger is that it, like, gets generic and becomes like, we are the World. Which all. You know, it's like, who are these faceless people that we're trying to save? The song is, even though it has so many singers, is, like, pretty bland itself. And so that's kind of the productive tension. The middle ground that I find Under Pressure, Occupying is that it's like, not we are the World. It is, like, more power, powerful. It's working in some of that territory where it's trying to speak to large collectives but still keeping some sense of grounded humanity. But it's not doing any sort of realistic character sketching either, that some people might miss if that's really. If they enjoy lyrical complexity and examination of relationships and things like that. So it's trying to do both. And you could see that kind of its legacy, which we might talk about, was like, some people took it and pulled it in the generic direction. Some people pulled it in the more personal direction.

[Bradley Morgan]

The song's final keyword is love. And in the book, you write that, like, the anthem love needed to be reinvented and reapplied. How did Under Pressure do that as an anthem?

[Max Brzezinski]

Well, I'd say what. It really reinvents love in an exciting way for me personally as a listener, insofar as it connects all these different sorts of love. You know, like, the Velvets have that song, Some Kind of Love, and it's talking about all that. That song is really talking about all the different types of love you can have. I mean, through a more cynical perspective, because Lou Reed is read. But Under Pressure is kind of doing the same thing where it's like, okay, well, there are lots of ways to love people. You can love your brother. You can love strangers. You can love your partner. You can have this abstract love for the good things in the world. You can love yourself. And really, what. The way it's reinventing it for me is that it's like trying to articulate all these forms of love into one vision. So there is not a good form of love and a bad form of love. It's trying to say that the love that you feel in a loving relationship can have a connection to strangers on the street. It's not the same, you know, obviously, but, like, it's all connected. There's a sense that it's all connected by strong desire to connect in the first place with other people. And so, I don't know, you could. I mean, a naysayer would say that it's kind of Cheesy, and it's kind of vague and kind of, like 60s or whatever. But I just find that, like, the song so emotionally moving that it kind of manifests. That's the feeling that it's trying to instill in the listener, this idea that everything is kind of shot through with desire and love, and people are calling out to each other in all these sort of ways to help one another in one way or another in a situation that does feel like, almost apocalyptic to Bowie. So I just find what the song is really trying to do is, like, very touching. And it's trying to basically, in, like, a heartless, ruthless world, like, find all the forms of love that are, like, still possible, even in dire situations, you know, I guess the microcosm of, like, trying to help somebody that is suicidal in the song is kind of the most glaring example.

[Bradley Morgan]

So. To Close Things Off under pressure was released 44 years ago and has been included among both Bowie's and Queen's most beloved songs. In terms of the song's themes and larger ideas, is there anything about it that feels ahead of its time in 1981? And why does it continue to be relevant today?

[Max Brzezinski]

I'd say sonically, obviously. I mean, its baseline was ahead of the time for Menu Ice to steal it all these years later and make another mega hit off of it. You know, the bass line is still good, even though the rest of that song is maybe not so hot. And that's what appealed to people. So sonically, I think just the. The contrast between the two styles was ahead of its time. You know, the idea that you could slam these highly different musical presentations into one. Into one song and kind of make it work has been. Was ahead of its time. And I think people have kind of done that with duets, although they're not coming to mind. But I can think of a lot of, like, genre crossovers that kind of push that contrast even farther. The only thing that's coming to mind right now is definitely not a good version of that, but it's Paula Abdul and MC Skec. But, like, there are, like, good versions of things where, like, you know, two groups really came. Two, like, contrasting styles were slammed together. So I think that's ahead of the time. I think there. It's really ahead of the time in imagining globalization in terms of a world community where maybe individual locations have a kind of deracinated feel and things you can both connect with people more easily sympathetically across the globe because our experiences are more similar, but at the same time, your own local rootedness feels a little more tenuous. I think it was ahead of the time and thinking about stuff like that, I think it's emphasis on the need for love and care. It's just kind of a perennial. I don't know if that's ever goes out of style for me, but I do think the way it put its finger, finger on the problems and when there's no. In a world where there's no real compelling institutional structure, bonding people together was very prescient. And it's called the whole concept of pressure, which we talked about earlier, I mean, obtains more and more. Like the idea of like you have these amorphous structures of capitalism and government that somehow feel to be like inside of you and running your whole life, but at the same time, you can't put your finger on where their centers of power are anymore. I think that pervasive sense that's in the song has only proven to be more and more true as time has gone on.

[Bradley Morgan]

Max, thanks so much for speaking with me today. Really compelling exploration of a song with such an interesting history, and you should be absolutely proud. It was a great book.

[Max Brzezinski]

Oh, thank you so much. It was lovely talking to you.

[Bradley Morgan]

My name is Bradley Morgan, and you've been listening to new books and music with my guest, Max Brzezinski. His latest book is Under Pressure, a song by David Bowie and Queen, and is an installment of the Single series published by Duke University Press.