I’m the first to admit that I’m the type of guy that reads a bit too much into things sometimes, for basically no reason. I still can’t get over the idea that everyone in Riverdale is yelling, at all times. (Speaking of which, have you seen the character redesign they did over at Archie last year? Holy Anne Hathaway, Ron!) But honestly: “Got Me Under Pressure” is really fucked up. Hear me out.

Let’s talk a little about ZZ Top. Approved by everyone from Jimi Hendrix (who once declared Billy Gibbons his favorite guitar player during an appearance on the Tonight Show) to Steve Albini (”Not because I could have done better, but because I’ve never done anything this good: any early ZZ Top…“) to David Lynch (”ZZ Top = the fast track to cool,”) one of the best things to ever come outta Texas. Their 1983 album Eliminator was utterly unlike anything that had come before it, pulling off the neat trick of combining stiff, metronomic rhythm sequences with authentically greasy blues guitar, and making it work. Nobody’s managed it since, including the Top themselves. But it (along with some semi-clever videos) made them superstars. This was as mainstream as it gets, folks; your Mom would dance to this if it came on the jukebox.

Now, we all know that the lyrical content of many a ZZ Top song regards sex. With ladies. Their catalog is replete with double entendres like “Pearl Necklace” and “I Got the Six” (completed in the chorus with “gimme your nine,”) single entendres like “Tush,” and “Woke Up With Wood,” a song that bends so far back on itself that it might actually be a negative entendre. “Got Me Under Pressure,” by contrast, is so direct that it’s somewhat disconcerting. Things start out innocuous enough: our protagonist is dating someone with expensive tastes (which isn’t very surprising. Once you class up the nerdy gal from the shoe store in the mini-mall across the street, she’s gonna start asking for the finer things.) However, “she won’t let me use my passion unless it’s in a limousine.” Is the titular pressure that Billy’s referring to merely blue balls? No, the situation’s far more sordid.

The next verse starts off gibberish (…the hell is a “mind museum?”) before getting a little more in-depth about Miss Limousine’s sexual tastes: “She don’t like other women/she likes whips and chains.” Okay, sure. BDSM=very yes, threesomes not so much. “She likes cocaine, and flippin’ out with Great Danes.”

“…with Great Danes.”

She fucks dogs.

“…it’s too much for my brain.” No kidding. Whatever is our protagonist to do? “I’m gonna give her a message, here’s what I’m gonna say: ‘It’s all over.’” That’s the smart thing to do, friend. But he’s scared to, because he knows what’s in store for him: “She might get out a nightstick and hurt me real real bad by the roadside in a ditch.” In a ditch? I guess that’s how they do it in Texas, huh? Or…remember that line about how “she don’t like other women?” Maybe “she’s” a transvestite and that “nightstick” is a penis. It’d be par for the course in this seamy little tale. Worst of all, there’s no denouement, no end in sight. Our protagonist remains forever “under pressure.”

Next time: an in-depth analysis of “Unchained” by Van Halen!

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