Pressure Drop (song)

"Pressure Drop"
Single by the Maytals
from the album Monkey Man and The Harder They Come
B-side"Smoke Screen" (by Beverley All Stars)
Released1970 (1970)
Recorded1969
GenreReggae
LabelBeverley's, Trojan Records
Songwriter(s)Frederick "Toots" Hibbert
Producer(s)Leslie Kong
The Maytals singles chronology
""Sweet & Dandy/Oh Yea"" "Pressure Drop" ""54 46 (Was My Number)/The Man""

"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 Robert Palmer, the Specials, Keith Richards, Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds, the Oppressed and the Clash. It is also featured in the soundtrack for MLB The Show 23.[citation needed]

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]
  1. ^ "Rolling Stone : Pressure Drop". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 30 April 2007. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
  2. ^ "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.
  3. ^ Simpson, Dave (6 September 2016). "Toots and the Maytals: how we made Pressure Drop". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 September 2016.