Here’s what I learned last night… my new favorite song for powering through a LONG drive after a faraway book appearance is “Pressure” by Billy Joel. Being someone who considers herself a survivor of some stuff, I love the disdain with which he sings about the coddled and the soft. Gotta hand it to Billy Joel… when he was good, he was good. And then there was “Uptown Girl.”
Should you find yourself on a road trip during which your brain is slowly liquifying, turn up the AC, point it at your eyeballs and power up this bad boy on YouTube. Or, you know… pull over.
Besides that exhilarating riff, my favorite thing about this song are the lines:
“I’m sure you have some cosmic rationale
But here you are with your faith
And your Peter Pan advice
You have no scars on your face
And you cannot handle pressure.”
PS – I was 12 damn years old when this song came out in 1982 and I REMEMBER WATCHING IT ON MTV. Because I am effing old, people.