Unearthed old interviews with David Bowie and Queen have revealed that ‘Under Pressure’ was recorded while everyone was drunk.
In the latest episode of the Queen the Greatest YouTube series, it is explained that a night of tomfoolery in the recording studio ultimately led to the creation of the classic track.
“[Queen] were recording there and, David [Richards, record producer] knew that I was in town, and phoned me up and asked me if I’d come down, if I’d like to go down and see what was happening,” Bowie recalled in the footage.
“So I went down and these things happen, you know, suddenly you’re writing something together and it was totally spontaneous, it certainly wasn’t planned. It was peculiar!”
According to Queen drummer Roger Taylor, that spontaneity was the result of alcohol consumption.
“Well, I think the process was we were all drunk, and in the studio, and we were just for fun playing all sorts of old songs,” he said.
“I remember a couple of old Cream songs, and whatever came into our heads and I think David said, ‘Look, hang on a minute, why don’t we write one of our own?'”
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Queen‘s Brian May continued on to explain that it was the band’s bassist John Deacon who came up with the song’s iconic riff and kept repeatedly playing it.
However, according to Taylor, everyone forgot what it sounded like after they have taken a break and went out to get pizza. Luckily, Taylor eventually remembered it, and they resumed working on the track from there.
“By that time, David was very impassioned with it and he had a vision in his head I think,” May said.
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Check out Queen and David Bowie discussing the making of ‘Under Pressure’:
