Pressure Drop (song)
"Pressure Drop" is a song recorded in 1969 by the Maytals for record producer Leslie Kong. The song appears on their 1970 album Monkey Man (released in Jamaica by Beverley's Records) and From the Roots (released in the UK by Trojan Records). "Pressure Drop" helped launch the band's career outside Jamaica when the song was featured on the soundtrack to the 1972 film The Harder They Come, which introduced reggae to much of the world.[1] In 2004, Rolling Stone rated the song No. 453 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[2] This song has been covered often, most notably by the Specials, Keith Richards, Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds, the Oppressed and the Clash.
| "Pressure Drop" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by the Maytals | ||||
| from the album Monkey Man and The Harder They Come | ||||
| B-side | "Smoke Screen" (by Beverley All Stars) | |||
| Released | 1970 | |||
| Recorded | 1969 | |||
| Genre | Reggae | |||
| Label | Beverley's, Trojan Records | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Frederick "Toots" Hibbert | |||
| Producer(s) | Leslie Kong | |||
| The Maytals singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Pressure Drop" refers to the barometric pressure. This song predates modern weather forecasting, and at that time in the context of this song, island populations relied on the simple but reliable instrument (barometer) to predict adverse weather. The liquid barometer displays pressure as a measure of the fluid in a glass tube, and when the air pressure drops the fluid level "drops" accordingly. A rapid drop in air pressure indicates the severity of the approaching storm (hurricane), and is sometimes referred to as "the bottom dropping out". Attention to pressure changes could spell the difference between life and death for an island dweller. "Pressure drop" is used as a poetic device in this song, and is the artist's way of saying, "A storm is coming for you."
The song was featured in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the radio station K-Jah West.
In an interview in 2016, songwriter Frederick "Toots" Hibbert said that "Pressure Drop" was a song about karmic justice.
It’s a song about revenge, but in the form of karma: If you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you. The title was a phrase I used to say. If someone done me wrong, rather than fight them like a warrior, I’d say: 'The pressure’s going to drop on you.'"
— Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert, The Guardian[3]
References
- "Rolling Stone : Pressure Drop". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on 30 April 2007. Retrieved 2 October 2016.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
- "The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. 9 December 2004. Archived from the original on 10 January 2007. Retrieved 22 November 2007.
- Simpson, Dave (6 September 2016). "Toots and the Maytals: how we made Pressure Drop". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
