The Collaboration Of The Decade
The song Under Pressure was a collaborative composition of David Bowie, and was credited as “Queen with David Bowie.”
According to John Deacon, Freddie Mercury did most of the songwriting but David Bowie and everyone else had something to contribute. The main point of the song was dealing with how pressure can destroy lives, and love can always be the answer to everything — and this, of course, is Freddie Mercury’s songwriting characteristic.
via @david.bowielove | Instagram
John Deacon came up with the iconic bassline – and Brian May recalled the songwriting days for this song,
“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.” May adds how he felt during the sessions, “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.”
In the US, Under Pressure was Queen’s Greatest Hits album and released as a single at the same time.