THE SMITHS: Is 'Panic' Secretly About Jimmy Savile? 

"Provincial towns you jog round" is so weirdly specific, that's what convinces me.

The fact that we are talking about Panic all these years later is an achievement in itself for The Smiths. I’d be very surprised if the band had not heard any rumors about Savile who was still a big name in the media during the ‘80’s. Don’t expect a response from Morrissey - anything he says today is attacked regardless of whether he is right or wrong.

Hi James, I'm not sure if you are aware, but both Morrissey and Jimmy Savile lived in Leeds at the same time for a period. I believe Morrissey lived in Harehills, which is mainly terraced housing with many side streets to slip down. I also believe Savile lived in that area for a while around that time. His apartment overlooking Roundhay Park is within walking distance of Harehills. St.James' Hospital is in Harehills too. I had the unfortunate pleasure of having to deliver mail to his office in the Leeds General Infirmary, situated next to the children's cancer ward, where he'd sit with his feet up on the desk, smoking a stogie and never offer thanks for me doing my job. I should've pushed him in Roundhay Lake when I had chance as a kid. Good riddance!

I’ve just realised the possible significance of the line, “Hang the ‘blessed’ DJ” . Savile was a practicing Catholic who met the Pope and received awards from the church hierarchy.

Johnny Rottens subsequently censored interview is brilliant.

20 years ago I worked at the Leeds General Infirmary. Jimmy Saville volunteered as a Hospital Porter, moving patients and the dead around on trolleys. He also had his own office in the building, tucked away on the top 6th floor. Most people who worked there were creeped out by him.

Love or hate him, Morrisey doesn't strike me as the type to be scared of being cancelled by the elite pedos.

As other people have said it’s always a bit curious when people describe Savile in retrospect as a “national treasure”. Even before the scandal he was widely regarded at best as a bit embarrassing/cringey/weird and at worst as pretty creepy and sinister. I’m sure he must have had some fans, but it’s not like he was David Attenborough or someone.

"How Soon Is Now...Then Now Then?"

I could never get my head around why he'd be so bold as to want to HANG the DJ even if he wasn't in to pop. Now it makes perfect sense.

‘Leeds side streets that you slip down’ i don’t think there’s a more obvious line

The John Lydon quote is truly terrifying!

"The train was filled with lovely handicapped children" Jimmy Savile, 1984. Wow, talk about hiding in plain sight.

Yes James! More Smiths, more Morrissey, and more Johnny Marr!

Morrisey was a punk in the late 70's so would definitely have been aware of what rotten said

I’d never noticed or thought about this before. However I have always felt that “Mummy’s Boy” by Madness was certainly about Jimmy Savile

The first two cities mentioned: London and Birmingham. Shepherd's Bush and Pebble Mill, anyone?

More Smiths, Marr and Morrissey content please! So many great stories I'm sure.

First & foremost Morrissey is a wordsmith/ poet. The placenames Dublin, Dundee, Humberside have a wonderful, internally-rhyming rhythm to them.. (it’s the ‘ugh’ sound). And ‘Leeds Side Streets’ is also a fabulous sounding phrase (when said aloud). He could’ve used ‘Derby, Lincoln & Yeovil’.. but he didn’t. because he’s a great wordsmith & knows how to put words together in an extremely pleasing way.

Morrissey, you clever bugger you😮 It's too weird that it mentions Leeds, Grasmere, jogging and slipping away down the side streets of Leeds. Not to mention hang the DJ etc. It's gotta about Saville hasn't it?

It's a bit Nostradamus-y. Write cryptic lyrics that only start to make sense after the fact. There was nothing to stop Morrissey using a placename more closely associated with Savile - Stoke Mandeville, for example - or terms like "fix it" that might have been clearer without being libelous. And Morrissey could have said in interviews that it was about a faraway planet where DJs get away with horrible crimes, but instead he went off on a tangent about hating Diana Ross.

There was definitely a notable change in the relationship between the music industry and radio starting around 1985-1986. I knew a local top-40 dj in '89 who filled me in on some of the recent changes, and how hits were now increasingly manufactured instead of being "organic" as in past years. I think this is why The 80s can almost be neatly divided into two, distinct halves, and also explains the rise of indie labels and grunge of the early 90s - everything by then had become too pre-packaged, over-produced, and out-of-touch, and there was enough momentum for a backlash that couldn't be ignored.

Johnny Rotten knew all about what was happening because a lot of his friends were prostitutes and rent boys. Thats how he knew about Reginald Bosanquet. Shane McGowan was a rent boy. They were on the front lines of a very seedy underground. Of course Morrissey heard about what was going on. They all knew. I'm sure it goes much deeper than this. I know a writer who was penning a biography of another 80s singer and he told me that he gathered more information that was unprintable than anything he could put in the book. We are naive to what went on back then. The grooming scandals of today are swept under the carpet. The abuse of teenagers in the late 70s is lost in time already as they didn't speak out. The irony now is that both Lydon and Morrissey live within miles of one another in LA and are both outspoken in their views and most of the time are proved to be right. As teenagers in Birmingham in the 70s we would see groups of rent boys gathered outside the Crown next to the mens toilets. We thought it one big joke. My heart breaks now as an adult to think that it was happening and nobody tried to help them. They sniffed glue to take away the memories. Savile was prolific and abused his position but he was far from alone.

Wow wasn’t expecting to see this so soon but great video again and great research even beyond what I found. It’s entirely possible the idea for a song about Panic came from the Chernobyl news but it is strange that there is no mention of anything about it in the song. Songs evolve and if Morrissey wrote ideas down to use in songs then it’s possible the Chernobyl lyrics ended up in Every Day is Like Sunday where he specially mentions Armageddon and nuclear death…

'Panic' is a work of art in its oblique yet obvious Savile references. They obviously couldn't name him. The idea of S having to give this air-play is enough to make me smile. Take my hat off to Morrissey,

A friend of my mum worked in the costume department of the BBC, one of the shows she worked on was Top of the Pops, and she said it was well known in the BBC what Saville was like, but they didn`t realise just how extensive the abuse was, or how perverted he actually was. Staff would not allow their kids to go the Christmas Party for BBC staff if he was attending, or they even thought he was going to be there. She said it was certainly common knowledge among most of the staff at BBC TV Centre in London that he was not to be trusted, and had a reputation for being very "touchy-feely" as she called it. When I saw him on TV I got a bad feeling about him,without any prompting what so ever, he stuck me as being a creepy dirty old man, Jim`ll Fix it used to freak me out,the few times I saw it. My mum changed channel if he was on any programmes, it seemed obvious to us that he was a wrong `un. As for the song being about Saville, I suppose it could well be, many of the lyrics do fit, but is that just coincidence or was it actually about him ? It`s hard to know. I was a teenager in the 1980`s and I always thought this was a strange song, it seemed rather violent in mentioning Hang the DJ, also the song is fairly short even for a single. It could be argued that this is making things fit into a preconceived idea, rather than investigating other possible meanings for the lyrics. I think it could very well be about Saville, more info was coming out about him in the early 1980`s, it`s maybe as far as they ( or their managers / label ) were prepared to push things, without being accused of liable.

Spot on, James! And this was a brilliant video, another great bit of analysis and deep diving from you. A real eye opener and I feel so naive for not recognising the Savile signals on this song myself. Absolutely got this one so right - and I must admit I had never thought of this myself despite being a Smiths fan and regard Panic as among my faves - I’d always known it to be about Moz’s dislike of Steve Wright (for whatever reason, a bad review or something, while I wasn’t ever aware of the Chernobyl story link) The lyrics have to be about Savile. Now you mention it. Having watched the Savile drama ‘Reckoning’ starring Steve Coogan - it makes even more likely! Those clues in the lyrics, so obvious now, such as; Leeds, Grasmere disco, the reference to jogging, and of course panic in London as his bestie Maggie Thatcher is giving him the light of day and various awards as the BBC was doing its best to never notice any wrong doings…panic! I’d assume those places were picked deliberately rather than just for the sake of poetic rhyme - as at first thought. Blimey, great theory - I guess Morrissey must have struggled to find a word to rhyme with Stoke Mandeville… Hargreaves Strikes Again!

So glad to see you've done a vid about The Smiths, the band that got me into music. Never even thought about Panic being about Saville, but the lyrics all seem to fall into place. Great video 👍

I arrived in the UK before Saville was caught. He was a horrifying character, even without knowing who he was. I was like "can you not see what a creep this guy is?" but my English friends would all say "oh, he's a national treasure."

The power of this song in indie clubs was enthralling at the time, a spirited riposte to the naffness pumped out across the musical airwaves, and all those brain-dead songs that said nothing about our lives. The irony was those that played it experienced an existential crisis at the very moment they thought they were able to disarm it.

Morrisey is such a fantastic lyricist.

What another brilliantly thorough investigation, James! Not a single stone left unturned! That eerily fits the description of Savile to a tee! The only incongruous line is the ‘music they play says nothing to be about my life, which could have been added simply because Morrissey obviously felt strongly about it, even though it apparently doesn’t have much relevance to the rest of the song. It’s just so obvious when you look at the lyrics about ‘Leeds side street you slip round’ and ‘provincial towns you jog round’ and it’s a wonder that it’s taken us this long to make the connection! The slightly sad thing is that now, every time I play this song at a gig I’m going to get images of 1970’s news clips of the evil **** running around Leeds with his bloody cigar!🤦🏻‍♂️

In the mid 1980s I worked at Stoke mandeville hospital as a driver. The mortuary was about 35 seconds walk from the drivers rest room, I often saw him go there on his own. He had no business going in there.

😮 This is mind-blowing. I always wondered if 'Panic' was written about a famous person, but never put 2 and 2 together. 🤦🏻‍♂️ The Smiths were a Generational Masterclass. ❤ Great Content & Insight into the Lyrics. 👏🏻

I think it's a reach. Think it's more an attack on the music Mozza hated, but it's good piece of thinking outside the box.

Leeds side streets. Provincial towns you jog around. It's about Saville. The end. (Can we dig him up and make the ending refrain a reality? Please!)

Morrissey; a genius with lyrical ambiguity. The words, the video and stage use of children singing the chorus say it all; it was about Savile (and conveniently about radio DJ's playlists at the same time). I bet if a victim heard these lyrics afresh they would agree. Morrissey effectively did speak out, but the media would have vilified him at the time and subsequently for not naming Savile directly at the time.

Oh, not just the BBC but the Tory Party, The Monarchy, various NHS Trusts, the Press, the Police and some major Charities. I'll add that if any other media group present at the time could have snatched Saltville off the BBC at the time and employed him, they would have. To say anything else would be bollocks. He was massive and very popular, the majority thought he was great, the papers and broader media promoted this and that is just the truth.

Savile 'volunteered' as a hospital porter, it seems Morrissey's dad was a hospital porter in Manchester (some have replied Morrissey too). - I said he was asked about this song in Q magazine, I was wrong - it seems it was Loaded and he was only asked about the scandal. To paraphrase he said Savile should not be used an excuse to look for skeletons in closets of pop stars and music people from yesteryear. Paul McCartney said the exact same thing, in his case something like they had queues of girls outside backstage and hotel rooms and they never thought to ask for ID. Savile drove The Beatles around to some early gigs, and obviously was THE man at the BBC in the 60s (and for decades later). Savile was not just a DJ, he was THE DJ. He claimed (he often lied of course, but it could well be true) to have invented DJs using two record decks to play music non-stop. Savile also said on TV that The Beatles' Paperback Writer was written about him. Why that particular song? I believe it probably alludes to Ian Fleming's 007 books, because we know that Savile worked for, and was very close to, the Royals. A licence to do...whatever he wanted. As Charles wrote to him with a present of some birthday cufflinks 'nobody will ever know what you have done for this country'. Savile had a very isolated house in Glencoe, Scotland, where Charles famously visited him. In the movie Skyfall, James Bond's family house is in...Glencoe. The Moors Murderers met at one of Savile's discos in Manchester. The Smiths and particularly Morrissey caused a huge affair with the song about the Moors Murders, Suffer Little Children, and then subsequently befriending the families. An excellent video James, good to have it brought up again (it did cause huge comment at the time of the scandal among people who both followed it and knew the song). Some thoughts: 1:51 Honey Pie in the lyrics - A Beatle's song 2:06 lyric 'hang the blessed DJ' - Savile was a Papal Knight 7:58 Absolutely. This is masonic. It's called 'masterfully speaking' or the like - revealing the truth but it APPEARS (to those not in the know) to be pointing in a completely different direction. Morrissey is a freemason, as we see on the cover of Alma Matters. 12:55 Savile DID become 'The Hanged Man' after death...rather 'prophetic' of The Smiths!

The truth could be that it is about more than one thing. A combination of criticisms of the mainstream media, music business, politics and society in general and then maybe the specific story or rumours about Savile (and possibly others too!) were added into the mix.

The fact that the song is based on T-Rex's 'Metal Guru' is worth a discussion, too.

i recall footage of Savile jogging for a charity event. He was rude with a put-down to a random member of the public. It was that moment i realised that he wore a mask and that few saw the real Jimmy Savile

And the children singing in the background at the end. Even more chilling.

Another great video mate! You tell great stories I've never seen covered on RU-vid bwfore, interlaced with professional editing. Real quality stuff, James.

a huge Smiths fan here, I often wondered about Panic lyrics and totally accept the Saville connection/meaning and now LOVE that they took the flack for "hang the dj" sentiment hiding a real meaning they didn't have to get sued again for!

A demonic entity if ever I saw one. He used to creep me out as a kid when he came on Top of the Pops. I preferred Simon Dee and Samantha Juste as presenters.

Jill Dando was in the process of outing Savile. The rest is history.

A couple of points of doubt: 1. If John Lydon was blacklisted by the BBC in 1978 it didn’t last long: he appeared on Juke Box Jury, primetime BBC 1 in 1979. 2. Likewise Jerry Sadowitz: if he was blacklisted by the BBC how come he made two series for BBC Two: The Pall Bearer’s Revue in 1992 and Stuff the White Rabbit in 1997?

I respect Morrissey even more with every decade that passes.

I think DJ by Bowie could possibly also be about him. "Time flies when you're having fun Break his heart, break her heart He used to be my boss and now he is a puppet dancer I am the D.J., and I've got believers"

Grasmere in the song is a strange reference. Very specific and a very small place., overlooking a lake. Just a thought but Saville's flat in Leeds was Lakeview Court. Given its location, the rest of the line fits aswell.

the only DJ that played 'white indie music' was John Peel, but sadly there were also some allegations about Peel's behaviour with young females as well (after he died)....

I’ve always thought this and was shocked how no one had pointed out finally you have! Brilliant vid James as usual 🙌

Great video!!! One point that was missed was the reference to “jogging” in the song lyrics. It could have been specifically linked to Saville running marathons and hence further evidence that this song is indeed about Saville.

Funny how a friend of the Crown managed to escape justice from Crown servants. Wonder if he would have been caught if Police and CPS were public servants

My mother told me in 1972 that Savile was a monster, so strange that an East London housewife knew and the BBC, the British government and police didn't 🤷‍♂️

Very interesting theory that seems to fit seamlessly together. I always assumed that the lyrics listing places where there's panic, provincial towns and big cities etc. as being about how modern rubbish pop music infects absolutely everywhere and you can't escape it whether you're in a little tea shop in Grasmere, a second hand shop in Dublin or a pub in Dundee. It's certainly still the case how inappropriate & jarring the music is when heard when being served by an elderly lady in a teshop in a provincial town or when eating dinner in a local pub and the music is all about completly alien things

Interesting theory, but Mossisey would have said as much by now that is was about Savile.

Some say saville was the real yorkshire ripper. The first victim found near his house. Morrisey looked at Myra....maybe hinted at jimmy

I used to see Saville jogging around the provincial town of Aylesbury in the 90s. This theory is more than coincidence...

I've watched a lot of Savile docs in the past week so this is odd timing for me. Knowing what he got up to in Leeds general infirmary my stomach turned at the first mention of Leeds. Savile did an ad with a child on a train and having so many children around a train as shown in this video is particularly grim. In his 1971 Autobiography he recounts losing his virginity to an older woman on a train when he was 14 so this seems to me another one of his ways of brazenly connecting children with sexuality and doing it in front of a public who doesn't manage to notice.

I've not really thought of the Smith song panic like this before, but wow, does it make sense now. Sometime lyric need to be brought to light so you can have a better understanding of them. Thank you for the video.

If only we knew what Margaret On The Guillotine was about. I'm stumped.

"That you jog around?" Wasn't Jimmy known for doing extreme running events?

Great video James. It certainly sounds plausible. Plus hiding such a sinister message behind such a chirpy upbeat song would be typically Smiths. I've just watched the Panic video and there's some kind of written message with the words 'people' and 'bloody' though it's not easy to make out the whole line. Plus the 'hang the DJ' refrain outro is backed by images of flames!

Strange really, I'm mixed race yet I had the same sensibility as Morrissey about black music in the 80s though I'd say it about all American music in the 80s and the UK acts that imitated it, just horrible vacuous overblown soulless cacophonies and don't get me started on hip hop.

We shouldn’t forget that Jimmy Savile started his career as a DJ he lived in Leeds. Overlooking the park, whether there was two Yorkshire Ripper attacks..

MI5, MI6 Military Intelligence, The Met, Special Branch, EVERYBODY Knew what he was up to....... And yet they gave him his own TV show with kiddies galore...... WTF ?

I think that's spot on .When you think about The Smiths all Morrissey's lyrics had a story behind them .And after watching the recent Steve coogan documenary on Jimmy savile the lyrics definitely fit 100% Great video

It makes sense now..I always didn't get the hang the Dj lyric in this song..but now it makes sense

I find it interesting that Jimmy Saville was allowed in the Royal family Inner circle.

Interesting theory but Tony Fletcher is wrong. The Chernobyl Disaster was 26 April 1986. Panic was recorded in May 1986 and released July 21 1986. The dates do line up for Panic to have at least been *inspired* be the Steve Wright/Chernobyl incident, but perhaps Morrissey took it in a different direction when it came to writing the lyrics.

No. It's about Steven not liking Hip Hop and wishing T. Rex would come back.

Finding out Morrisey surreptitiously wrote a song about Saville being a monster and finding out he likes conspiracies about the music mafia makes me actually kinda like him now. I wonder if Morrisey now knows Chernobyl is a wildlife preserve now and there's no radiation or plants dying for thousands of years like we were told it was going to be. Nuclear power is actually clean inexpensive energy but the programming behind it is so strong that it makes people go berserk when you say that.

Brilliant video James and bang on the money when you read the lyrics. Id never really thought much about that childrens choir at the end, singing “hang the dj,Hang the dj”. However that nails it for me

"I am obsessed with Manchester, I always have been: Manchester history in every conceivable way" - Morrissey in 1987 When Morrissey was a pop-obsessed young child in 1960s Manchester, Savile was also living there at the height of his fame (the first episode of Top of the Pops was aired from Rusholme). Rumours about Savile's sexual abuse while running kids discos in the city were rife.. The author Val McDermid worked as a journalist in Manchester for the Sunday People newspaper in the 1970s and 80s - and she heard countless rumours circulating about Savile : “When I was working as a journalist there was always stuff about Jimmy Savile and young girls and stories that he was a serial predator." It seems highly likely that Morrissey also heard these rumours at some point. Savile's home was in Higher Broughton, Salford, which was also the home of playwright and Morrissey icon Shelagh Delanely She appears on the cover of compilation album 'Louder Than Bombs' which features Panic about her fellow Higher Broughton resident. Aside from the lyrics obviously being partly about Savile - DJ, Leeds, jogging -come on! - there's a clue in the message etched in the run out grooves to the 7" vinyl single which feature an altered line to the seemingly unrelated Reel Around The Fountain track from the first album (""I DREAMT ABOUT STEW LAST NIGHT") Why that song? The first time the Smiths drew national tabloid attention in 1983 it was over a paeodophile furore about Morrissey's lyrical content : "CHILD SEX SONG PUTS BEEB IN A SPIN".the Sun headline screamed. After the article the BBC banned Reel Around the Fountain from the radio due to it's ambiguous lyrics about the loss of innocence ("It's time the tale were told of how you took a child and made him old") which was meant to be the next Smiths single - the first pressings had already been made - but had to be shelved. It can't have escaped Morrissey's attention that while actual open-secret child abusers such as Savile were free to take to the nation's airwaves and earn huge salaries from the BBC, they wouldn't playlist emotionally-complex Smiths songs due to a contrived paedophilia controversy yet were meanwhile protecting big-name paedophiles themselves. "STEW" (changed from "you") could well be a reference to another famous broadcaster Stuart Hall, who was using BBC Manchester studios to abuse young girls for decades (he was later convicted for assaulting 13 girls, mostly on BBC premises). Rumours about his behaviour had, again, been in circulation for a very long time by the mid-80s. Some BBC employees in Manchester knew he was taking underage girls into his dressing room but felt powerless to do anything. It's possible that Morrissey knew about this open secret too.

I heard the idea that 'Panic' was about Savile around a month ago when I was chatting to somebody. They mentioned the Leeds connection and I figured it adds up.

In an interview in the late 80s Morrissey offered the following circumstances behind the inspiration of Panic. He said that while he happened to be listening to Radio One, he heard an announcement by the DJ Simon Bates of some catastrophic event leading to a humanitarian crisis. Immediately after making the news announcement, Bates simply said something along the lines of , 'that's terrible, but anyway, here's Wham'. Although the DJ's behaviour that day was simply the straw that broke the camel's back it fired his creative spark.

Hi James - Thanks for covering the Smiths and you may be correct on the subject of the song, although I also hear elements of the state of radio. Could very well be a combination of both? Just an fyi I know for certain that Panic was recorded in May of 1986, not 1985 as you mentioned Tony Fletcher had written in his book. The single was released in July of 1986 as well. Regardless, you make some great points on the subject of the lyrics. I would love it if you would cover more of The Smiths. They had a unique run in the history of British Rock and there is a lot to uncover! If I had time I would give it a go myself, however, am happy to share stories and topics for you to dive into!

Brilliant upload👍👍👍👍👍 I am from Leeds came across Jimmy Savile frequently not to talk to he was strange always protected by a couple of henchmen. The first time in memory was at a talent competition at Quarry Hill Flats 1948 or 1949. He sang an impersonation of Al Johnson. I was staying with my Aunt an Uncle who was a miner at Middleton Pit mentioned he knew him as a Bevan Boy Records state he was born in 1926 which would put him down the pit in 1944 I was 8 years old. What has stuck in my mind ever since whats a 26/7 year old doing performing in a kids talent show? Later as I became older like most kidsI owned a drop handle bike with gears and the favourite run was Leeds to Otley at week ends Saville would tare past on his flash Daws bike. He kept a Dansette record player in the cafe adjacent the Chippendale statue outside Otley Grammer and play records to entertain the cyclists his age 28. Leaving school I attended Leeds Technical College and Lunchtime we spent at Leeds Arcade Mecca and there he was again playing records on the bands stage I left college in 1963 that makes him 37. 1968 working and lodging in Manchester and there he was again at the Manchester Mecca as the manager still with his bodyguards he is now 42. Nobody got close to Saville those that new off him (nobody new him) kept their distance any man of his age always around young people is definightly a Pedo. And like Morrisey I come from the Woodhouse area and yes we suspected pity the BBC didn't.

I would recommend Mark Devlin’s work for more information of this nature. The music industry is nothing like we think it is.

Wow...I loved the Smiths and this blows my mind. It also gives me a deeper respect for Morrissey.

Not sure there’s much evidence to say the song was about Savile. However I’m pretty sure the club he had in Leeds was in side street (has a very side street feel to it at least). Although I like a lot of the vids on channels I really think it’s probably clutching at straws to conclude it’s anything other than what we already think Panic is. With the place names, Savile was everywhere. No mention of Manchester in it, yet he spent a long time there. And with the map there are so many places he offended that it takes more effort to find a place that isn’t close to somewhere he offended. I’ve checked some unsolved murders that I can’t even really say are Savile for the same reason even though from a criminal psychology point of view it would be more surprising if Savile didn’t murder than if he did. You plot the places and dates and they’re near by places Savile would have been. Then you realise, Savile really got around and a coincidence like that isn’t a coincidence, it’s almost a certainty that he frequented somewhere close by on a map. So I’m not convinced Panic is about Savile. Even though with nothing being noted about offences in Dublin, doesn’t mean Dublin isn’t a place Savile went. And Morrissey won’t have known the places he did offend, he’d have been talking about places Savile went. But again, pick any major Town or City at random in the UK especially and you’re bound to name somewhere not far from where Savile visited at least a few times.

"the music that THEY constantly play" - if it was about Saville the line would be "the music that HE constantly plays"

Just started watching but I just want to say you’re my favourite RU-vidr.

It doesn't only have to be about Saville, although there is enough there to make me sure he's included. It could also be a general swipe at BBC internal culture particularly the rest of the creepy DJ's. Not only that, but maybe the melody maker interview was more a swipe at the more corporate record industry labels making sure the BBC gave their own artists the prime daytime air play thus keeping Indie bands in their niche evening shows. I imagine there are several layers to this song. Great video.

It never occurred to us this song was about Saville, it’s really difficult to unhear it that way. Live your channel James

The music video for panic has graffiti for the LDDC in it. That was the London Docklands Development Committee. This redevelopment of canary wharf etc, for yuppies, started similar developments around other parts of the country. You may be interested to see some of those locations, as they would have caused gentrification of those areas, forcing locals out who had put up with poor conditions, just to have the rich move in and make the improvements out of financial reach of the poorer people. From Wikipedia, but other sites say similar about the LDDC program. The success of the LDDC spurred the government to set up similar bodies elsewhere, for example in Merseyside (1981) and later the Black Country, Cardiff Bay, Trafford Park (Greater Manchester) (all 1987), and the Central Manchester Development Corporation (1988)

I knew at the time that the Chernobyl and Steve Wright reference was metaphorical. On one level it was indeed about these syndicated DJs playing the same, generic, mindless or empty, escapist stuff all the time as if in one of the Stepford stories. The occurrence of this just after the Chernobyl broadcast just chimed with Morrissey on this song he'd written quite some time before. They had been debating re-releasing the song and that time was around when they made the decision. The Chernobyl reference was also about a huge, contained, energy which could explode, yet things were, unbelievably, so controlled, ordered, maintained, quietly decided.

As always, great video James. Happy Crimbo from Ireland 🇮🇪✌🏻

Personally feel this is blowing something up, panic is very clever as its vague and can slip into many different ideas and i feel like this is such. I very much see the simplier version of a indie person trying to find a place to drink, pub after pub playing terrible disco music, next pub same, another city same, everywhere the same! You slip down alleys to get away from the music but it even reaches these spots! When he says hang the dj, he means hang every dj, their all playing all this music that doesnt speak anything about our lives.

There’s a live version of this song (Eurotube 1986), where the band is performing it with a young boy singing on the stage. Check it out. And hang the DJ afterwards 🤟

Mate, great video, really fascinating. I love the song but didn't know any of the backstory. Morrissey makes me laugh, maybe you can ask him..?!

Brilliant work. Well done, James. I have to point out, though, the Chernobyl disaster happened April 26, 1986, and 'Panic' was released in July 1986.

Really interesting video, I wasn’t aware of this before but as you conclude it does seem to line up well.

I’m 100% convinced. Blessed dj is referring to his friendship with the pope. Listen to the start of the song and then listen to the start of the Jim’ll fix it them tune!

Always wondered about the lyrics to this one, the 'panic' element never seemed to connect with the 'hang the DJ' element, altho' without Morissey saying so, which he probably won't there'll be no 'smoking gun' - nevertheless, great vid, keep 'em coming!

I'm a huge Smiths and Morrissey fan and I have never put two and two together but oh my word what you say makes a lot of sense!!

This song was written in reaction to an incident where the BBC DJ, Steve Wright, played the trite and spunky Wham! track, "I'm Your Man," following a news report about the Chernobyl disaster - a devastating nuclear accident that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. Guitarist, Johnny Marr, recalled to NME in 1987: "'Panic' came about at the time of Chernobyl. Morrissey and myself were listening to a radio report about it. The stories of this shocking disaster comes to an end and then immediately we're off into Wham's 'I'm Your Man.' I remember actually saying, 'What the f*ck has this got to do with people's lives?' And so, 'Hang the blessed DJ.' I think it was a great lyric, important and applicable to anyone who lives in England."

You know, I hear song lyrics getting dissected and over abaltzed when either the artist meant to specific interpretation or listeners manufactured a meaning yo them tgat fit what they wanted to believe, but in this case, your analytical overview actually seems to uncover a legit interpretation, and takes on a new relevance when, as you pointed out, others in music and the media were blacklisted for revealing knowledge of saville’s crimes. Pretty interesting upload.