Bob Schwartz

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?

When I saw a playlist with a 2020 cover recording of Under Pressure by Karen O and Willie Nelson, I was curious but skeptical. I shouldn’t have been.

The original by Queen and David Bowie (1981) is fast, loud and desperate—pressurized. This version is slow and lyrical. Which gives us a chance to hear the lyrics below.

As appropriate as any song I’ve heard lately.

Under Pressure

Pressure
Pushing down on me
Pressing down on you
Under pressure
That burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets

It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about
Watching some good friends screaming, “Let me out”
Pray tomorrow gets me higher
Pressure on people, people on streets

Chipping around, kick my brains ’round the floor
These are the days, it never rains, but it pours

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