Video: Kae Tempest performs More Pressure | Grace

Kae Tempest performs a medley of “More Pressure” and “Grace” for The Tonight Show.

Kae Tempest (formerly Kate Tempest; born 1985) is an English spoken word performer, poet, recording artist, novelist and playwright.

At the age of 16, Tempest was accepted into the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon. In 2013, they won the Ted Hughes Award for their work Brand New Ancients. They were named a Next Generation Poet by the Poetry Book Society, a once-a-decade accolade. Tempest’s albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Their debut novel The Bricks That Built the Houses was a Sunday Times best-seller and won the 2017 Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Breakthrough Author. Tempest came out as non-binary in 2020, using pronouns they/them.

More Pressure

Songwriters: Daniel De Mussenden Carey / Kae Tempest / Clifford F. Simpson / Orla Carey

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More Pressure
More Release
More Relief
More Belief
More Distance
More Reach

The truth is
I don’t know
It’s so deep

I know nothing
I used to think
Things were so clear
I was so near to nowhere
I could feel everything in me
Pushing for certains
But certains are flimsy
Rock-solid ground beneath me now tells me there’s no ground at all
More Pressure
More Release
Your eyes, your cheeks
Your features crease

More desire
Less deceit
Less complex
More complete
Less Push
More Flow
Please –
Let Me Let Go

Get it all out of you
Let it surprise you
I was in a party, face mostly eyeballs
Chin deep in a bag of white lies
Saying I’m sick and tired of my own advice
I see it now
So perfect
But so hard to put into practice
One step forwards, two steps backwards
One soul’s epiphany’s
Another soul’s madness
I saw the truth in the curls of the vanishing girl
Hands like cobwebs dangling
Eyes like deep sea dives
She said stop worrying man
Stop panicking

Calmer
Clearer
Closer
Nearer

More grounded
More rooted
Less convoluted

More stillness
More movement
More existence
Less improvement

More decisions
Less solutions
Less inhibition
Less confusion

More intuition
More connection
More nature
More protection

More abundance
More reflection
Less instruction
More comprehension

More pressure
More release
More relief
More belief
More distance
More reach
The truth is
I don’t know
It’s so deep

More pressure
More release
More relief
More belief
Less Push
More Flow
Please –
Let Me Let Go

Let me let go
Blast from the past
What’s so special
Ghetto in the universal
Well into the road that you came here for
Look at me, man
I came here past four
Look at the pressure, look at the souls
Look at the freedom, look at the clones
Look at my scars, look at my bones
Look at my folks
More relief, more push
More me, more you
Less news
Understand how to uh
And you taught me how to uh
So I came to get true
Travellin’ mind, revellin’
Let you try and rattle them
What’s true to you
What’s real?
We still stealing wallets from cars
Sitting on top of your car
We getting lost in the bar
Let ’em know

More Pressure
More Release
More Relief
More Belief
More Distance
More Reach
The truth is I don’t know, it’s so deep

More Pressure
More Release
More Relief
More Belief

Less Push
More Flow
Please –
Let Me Let Go