uptight adj : being in a tense state [syn: edgy, high-strung, highly strung, in suspense(p), jittery, jumpy, nervy, overstrung, restive]

English

Pronunciation

• ŭp-tīt', /ʌpˈtaɪt/, /Vp"taIt/

  Rhymes: -aɪt

Adjective

uptight

1. Excessively concerned with rules and order.

   Don't be so uptight! You won't go to jail for crossing the street against the light.

2. Sexually repressed.

   He came from a very uptight religious background, but you wouldn't know that now!

Related terms

• tightass

See also

• anal retentive

Up-Tight was the breakthrough album for Stevie Wonder, released in 1966 (see 1966 in music) on Motown Records' Tamla label. The album features the U.S. Top 5 single "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", which Wonder co-wrote with Sylvia Moy and Clarence Paul, the album's producer. The tracks on Up-Tight were the beginning of Wonder's development into a mature recording artist, independent of his earlier "Little Stevie Wonder" moniker and his image as a young Ray Charles imitator.

Also included on the album are "Nothing's Too Good For My Baby", another Wonder-cowrite, and a cover of folk star Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", which made Wonder popular with crossover audiences.

Track listing

1. Love a Go Go
2. Hold Me
3. Blowin' in the Wind
4. Nothing's Too Good for My Baby
5. Teach Me Tonight
6. Uptight (Everything's Alright)
7. Ain't That Asking for Trouble
8. I Want My Baby Back
9. Pretty Little Angel
10. Music Talk
11. Contract on Love
12. With a Child's Heart

accordant, anal, bourgeois, compulsive, concordant, conformist, conventional, corresponding, edgy, formalistic, harmonious, in accord, in keeping, in line, in step, kosher, nervy, orthodox, pedantic, plastic, precisianistic, restive, square, straight, strained, stretched tight, stuffy, taut, tense, traditionalist, under a strain, uneasy, unrelaxed