Pressure

"Pressure" is a 1982 song by American musician Billy Joel released as a single from the album The Nylon Curtain and reached #20 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The synthesizer-driven rock song tells about the pressure of creating and the pressure of being a provider. Themes and lyrics In Night School, a show airing on MTV in 1982 that ran roughly a half-hour long, in which he answers questions posed by audience members, Billy Joel reveals that the pressure he was talking about in the song was something along the lines of writing pressure and pressure to provide. The PBS children's TV series Sesame Street and New York PBS member station WNET ("channel 13") are also mentioned in the first bridge, and the magazine Time is mentioned in the second. Single and album edits The single version removes the third verse (starting with "Don't ask for help, you're all alone") and the second bridge. This version of the song was included in the original 1985 release of Greatest Hits – Volume I & Volume II compilation album, but the full album version was restored for the remastered edition, as well as The Complete Hits Collection: 1973–1997. Radio stations vary in whether they play the shortened or the full version of the song. Playing the song on an episode of VH1 Storytellers in 1997, Joel (for humorous effect) modulated the opening piano motif to a major key, and commented that it sounded like a polka when played that way.