Panic (The Smiths song)

Background and recording

"Panic" was recorded at London's Livingston Studios in May 1986. It was the group's first recording sessions since they completed work on their third album The Queen Is Dead six months earlier. During the interim period, bassist Andy Rourke had been fired due to his drug addiction to heroin, which had caused problems with his playing. The band hired Craig Gannon to replace him, but after they rehired Rourke, guitarist Johnny Marr offered Gannon a position as second guitarist.

The now five-piece band worked with producer John Porter at Livingston Studios; this was his first work with the group in two years. Porter added several layers of tracks by guitarists Marr and Gannon. Porter was concerned that the song was too short, so he copied the band's first take from 5 May and spliced a repetition of the first verse at the end to increase its length. The group was unimpressed and opted to leave the song as they originally structured it.

Composition and lyrics

A story circulated as the basis for the song holds that Marr and Morrissey were listening to BBC Radio 1 when a news report announced the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Straight afterwards, BBC disc jockey Steve Wright played the song "I'm Your Man" by pop duo Wham!. "I remember actually saying, 'What the fuck does this got to do with people's lives?'" Marr recalled. "We hear about Chernobyl, then, seconds later, we're expected to jump around to 'I'm Your Man'". While Marr subsequently stated that the account was exaggerated, he commented that it was a likely influence on Morrissey's lyrics. The band even commissioned a T-shirt featuring Wright's portrait and the phrase "Hang the DJ!"

"The anecdote might well be true," writes Tony Fletcher in A Light That Never Goes Out, his 2013 biography of the Smiths. However, he finds some elements of the story implausible. By the time of the Chernobyl disaster, he notes, "I'm Your Man" had been off the UK pop charts for several months, "and Morrissey hardly needed further provocation to attack Wright, whose highly ranked afternoon show treated all popular music as secondary to his madcap party format" (The antagonism was apparently mutual; former Smiths manager Scott Piering says that at a 1985 meeting, Wright and his producer both made it clear that they disliked the band's music). Moreover, he adds, the song itself makes no mention of the radio.

Journalist Nick Kent described "Panic" as a mandate for "rock terrorism". Luerssen calls the song a "...commentary on the tepid state of pop music in 1986". Musically, the song is a "chiming guitar song" based around a rotation between the G and E minor chords that mimics "Metal Guru" by the glam rock band T.Rex. John Luerssen calls the song Marr's homage to the T.Rex song. The song begins with Morrissey mentioning chaos unravelling throughout Britain and Ireland (specifically naming the locales as London, Birmingham, Carlisle, Leeds, Dublin, Dundee, and Humberside). In the second part of the song, Morrissey reveals that the source of this chaos is pop music, which in his words "says nothing to me about my life". In reaction, Morrissey implores listeners to "burn down the disco" and "hang the DJ", the latter lyrics repeated with the addition of a chorus of schoolchildren. Morrissey considered the fact that the song appeared on daytime British radio a "tiny revolution" in its own way, as it aired amongst the very music it criticised. Luerssen states that the lyrics are influenced by the Chernobyl disaster.

Release and reception

"Panic" drew negative reaction from critics who construed Morrissey's lyrics to have a racist connotation, due to its targeting of the "disco" and the "DJ". "If Morrissey wants to have a go at Radio 1 and Steve Wright, then fine," wrote Paolo Hewitt in the New Musical Express. But by using those words and "all the attendant imagery that brings up for what is a predominantly white audience, he is being imprecise and offensive." Fletcher agrees that the lack of any explicit indication the song was about radio, "it could be construed as reviving the racist and homophobic 'Disco Sucks' campaign of late 1970s America." Scritti Politti's Green Gartside accused the song and the band of being racist.

Morrisey denied the allegations of racism, but went on to say that reggae is the "...most racist music in the entire world." The criticism was intensified by comments Morrissey made in a September 1986 Melody Maker interview with Frank Owen, where the singer denounced a "black pop conspiracy". Marr in particular was incensed by the article and threatened to "kick the living shit" out of the writer if he crossed the band's path. Marr countered that "disco music" could not be equated with "black music"; he argued, "To those who took offence at the 'burn down the disco' line [. . .] I'd say please show me the black members of New Order!" Marr pointed out that New Order, a band of white musicians, played the most recognized dance music.

Fletcher suggests the song was not as much about race or sexuality as it was about the culture of British popular music. "For British Smiths fans," he writes,

... the 'disco' of 'Panic' was generally presumed to mean the longstanding city-centre meat market, which suggested exclusivity by demanding patrons wear a tie, or at least to 'dress smart,' but where drinks were overpriced, fights routine, and both the disc jockeys and the commercial Top 40 music that they played was almost embarrassingly disconnected from the neighbouring streets. Then again, when the Smiths performed 'Panic' to nearly 15,000 white American college kids, outdoors in the suburbs of Massachusetts, such reference points, vaguely stated in the first place, were easy to misconstrue.

"Panic" reached number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and stayed on the chart for eight weeks. The single also stayed on the Irish Singles Chart for five weeks, reaching a peak of number seven, and reached number 32 on the Dutch Top 40. "Panic" was voted Single of the Year by the annual NME readers poll, and also ("somewhat incongruously", noted Smiths biographer Simon Goddard) ranked sixth in the Best Dance Record category. In 2007, NME placed "Panic" at number 21 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever. Chris Sievey's Frank Sidebottom character released an EP in 1993, credited to The Sidebottoms, featuring nine versions of the song.

An image of a young Richard Bradford, the actor known for his lead role as private eye McGill in the 1960s British TV adventure series Man in a Suitcase, features on the sleeve cover.

Track listing

All songs written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr except where noted.

1. "Panic" – 2:20
2. "Vicar in a Tutu" – 2:21

1. "Panic" – 2:20
2. "Vicar in a Tutu" – 2:21
3. "The Draize Train" (Marr) – 5:10

Etchings on vinyl

British 7" and 12": I DREAMT ABOUT STEW LAST NIGHT/none

German 12": HANG THEM HIGH MONIKA/HANG THEM HIGH MONIKA

The British etching is a pun on a lyric from Reel Around the Fountain ("I dreamt about you last night").