"Panic" by The Smiths

Good evening dialophiles! Tonight, the Dial’s radio receivers pick up a frequency from our friends “across the pond”, as we spotlight an awesome track from iconic British alt-rockers The Smiths. Tune in right now for the pop music decrying classic “Panic”!

Panic on the streets of London… Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself… Could life ever be sane again?

A non-album single released in between The Smiths '85' LP "The Queen is Dead", and '87s "Strangeways, Here We Come", Panic peaked at #11 on the UK Singles chart in 1986, and would prove to be one of their highest charting tracks. Unfortunately, The Smiths were never given a major push on American top 40 radio, hence, none of their twenty charting UK singles ever crossed over to U.S. radio markets.

However, despite it’s relative obscurity in the States, Panic was voted single of the year back home in the U.K. by the annual NME (New Musical Express) readers poll, and ranked sixth in the best dance record category, a rather ironic award when one considers the nature of the song.

You see, to hear Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr tell it, BBC Radio One DJ Steve Wright played the uptempo bubblegum pop track "I'm Your Man" by Wham!, immediately after reporting on the horror and despair of the Chernobyl nuclear tragedy. Marr found this juxtapositioning incredibly crass, and openly criticized the role of pop music in people’s lives. Front man and lead vocalist Morrissey wrote the lyrics based around this critique, and “Panic” soon found itself getting airplay among the very light hearted pop tunes it mocked.

But there's Panic on the streets of Carlisle… Dublin, Dundee, Humberside
I wonder to myself…

I have to admit ignorance to the music of The Smiths during the 80s. I listened exclusively to the very American top 40 stations that didn't play them, and I didn't have cable or satellite TV until ‘91, so MTV was only an occasional treat when I visited relatives. I didn't discover Morrissey and crew until the mid ‘90s, when the Waves Music record store I worked at started frequently playing the Smiths "Singles" CD. It was then that I grew to appreciate their unique defeatist slant on Brit pop with tracks like "Girlfriend in a Coma", "Bigmouth Strikes Again", and what many consider to be their signature song, 1985's "How Soon Is Now?"

Given the current state of American top 40 radio, I believe it's high time for Morrissey and Marr's revolutionary anthem to mount a comeback. Their message is even more relevant in today's vapid pop culture and celebrity obsessed world than it was during the mid ‘80s. It would need to be a re-release of the original track, however. I’d hate to hear a hip-hop twinged dance cover by Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke... *shudder* (Although the irony would be delicious…)

Burn down the disco… Hang the blessed DJ…
Because the music that they constantly play…
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE…
Hang the blessed DJ. (Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ...)