David Bowie had a thing for unlikely collaborations. Over the years, he shared vocals with artists ranging from John Lennon and Tina Turner to Mick Jagger and even the big-band-era crooner Bing Crosby.
But none of those encounters delivered the creative firepower of “Under Pressure,” the 1981 hit that brought Bowie together with Freddie Mercury and Queen. The song not only paired up two of the rock world’s most talented vocalists — it also delivered one of rock’s most recognizable bass lines.
Bowie and Mercury weren’t exactly strangers. Their paths had crossed years before either man became a star. They first met in 1969, when Bowie played a lunchtime show at Ealing Art College, where Mercury was studying. Mercury, still going by his birth name, Freddie Bulsara, helped Bowie arrange tables into a makeshift stage for his performance. Two years later, around the time Bowie was making Hunky Dory, they met again at London’s Kensington Market. Mercury, working a clothing stall, reportedly tried to sell the future glam star a pair of platform boots.
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By 1981, though, neither man needed an introduction. Bowie was riding the success of Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), his first number-one U.K. album since Diamond Dogs, which featured the chart-topping single “Ashes to Ashes.” Queen, meanwhile, had just enjoyed one of the biggest American hits of their career with “Another One Bites the Dust,” a number-one in the U.S.
We were jamming to some of his songs and some of ours. We had a few bottles of wine and things.”
— Freddie Mercury
Their meeting point was Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland. Queen were working on what would become Hot Space, while Bowie was in the area working on “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” for the erotic horror movie Cat People. Bowie, possibly curious to see what his competition was up to, stopped by for a visit and stayed to add backing vocals to Queen’s “Cool Cat” (though he later decided he didn’t want them used).
“Bowie kept popping into the studio,” Mercury recalled in 1985. “And we were jamming to some of his songs and some of ours. We had a few bottles of wine and things.”
The “things” included copious amounts of cocaine, according to coproducer Reinhold Mack. “There was so much blow, but I needed a clear mind,” he told Mojo. As for songs, Queen and Bowie jammed on Mott the Hoople’s “All the Way From Memphis” and “All the Young Dudes,” the latter written by Bowie, along with Cream’s “I Feel Free” and “N.S.U.”
Eventually, Bowie suggested that instead of playing other people’s songs, they should make one of their own. Queen had an unfinished song titled “Feel Like,” which became the basis for “Under Pressure.” Bowie quickly took control of the session, no mean feat considering that he was dealing with Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon — four musicians who were hardly lacking in opinions.
“Freddie and David locked horns, without a doubt,” May told Mojo in 2017, “but that’s when the sparks fly, and that’s why it turned out great.”
“We were all very pig-headed,” Taylor said, “but Bowie was probably as pig-headed as the four of us put together.”
Deacon had a considerably harsher take on Bowie’s behavior.
He was quite a little Hitler in a way when he got going. Brian took offense to it because he didn’t like being told what to do.”
— John Deacon
“He was quite a little Hitler in a way when he got going,” he said. “He was pushing us and being dominant, you know. I didn’t mind, but Brian took offense to it because he didn’t like being told what to do.”
May had originally played much more guitar on the track, giving it a much more rock ’n’ roll vibe.
“It sounded like the Who,” the guitarist recalled. “It sounded massively chord-driven.
“I remember saying to David, ‘Oh, it sounds like the Who, doesn’t it?’ He says, ‘Yeah, well it’s not going to sound like the Who by the time I’ve finished with it!’”
May reportedly got fed up with the whole thing and left early, with the result that no one was there to look after his contributions. In the end, much of his heavy electric guitar was edited out of the final mix. Even the main riff he had played on electric guitar was replaced by acoustic guitar parts that had originally been recorded as a demo.
I remember saying to David, ‘Oh, it sounds like the Who, doesn’t it?’ He says, ‘Yeah, well it’s not going to sound like the Who by the time I’ve finished with it!’”
— Brian May
While some present at the session say the song was recorded in its entirety that night, others recall a vocal session between Mercury and Bowie recorded one or two weeks later, in New York City at the Power Station. They include Jon Bon Jovi, who was an assistant at the studio, owned by his second cousin Tony Bongiovi.
“It was literally the biggest recording studio in the world at the time,” he told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show in 2024. “One day, I looked through the control room door, and I watched David Bowie and Freddie Mercury sing ‘Under Pressure.’ I saw them sing that vocal.”
His account is backed up by Peter Freestone, Mercury’s personal assistant, in his 2001 book, An Intimate Memoir.
“The first of the two sessions for Under Pressure was twenty-four hours and the second, a couple of weeks later and 4,000 miles away in New York when Freddie and Bowie finished off the track at the Power Station, was a session which lasted another 18 hours.”
Despite the time spent on the track, May says no one was sure what to do with the song.
“There were continual disagreements about how ‘Under Pressure’ should be put out or if it should even be put out at all,” the guitarist said.
Ultimately, Queen and Bowie agreed to release “Under Pressure” as a single in October 1981. The result was Queen’s first U.K. chart-topper since “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Bowie’s first since “Ashes to Ashes.” In the U.S., the song reached a respectable number 29 and has remained a radio staple there ever since.
With Bowie’s death in 2016 — 25 years after Mercury’s — “Under Pressure” became a memorial to a now-bygone era of rock royalty. The song gained a new life in the weeks after, reappearing on charts around the world and reaching number five on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
Even Brian May’s feelings about “Under Pressure” have softened. What once carried the tension of its difficult creation has come to represent something else: the unlikely chemistry between Queen and Bowie, captured in a recording that outlived all of them.
“Looking back now, I think it’s a very special, significant song for us,” he says. “But I would love to sit down quietly on my own and remix it.”
