5430

Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again?
The Leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself.

The past, they say, is a different country.

I heard Panic (by The Smiths) on a Monday evening on the Richard Skinner or David Jenson's show before Peelie came on. In July, atmospheric conditions meant that the medium wave signal came and went, but the power of the song, and the fact that The Smiths had a group of children backing the song.

Before the internet if we wanted to hear a song, we had to own it or hear it on the radio. As David Hepworth says, we were far more likely to read about music than actualy hear it, which made our purchases so very precious.

To see how much has changed, I have listened to Chaise Longue by Wet Leg every day this week via YouTube, because I can. But go back twenty five years I would have to wait for a DJ to play it, or for it to appear on Top of the Pops or OGWT to see what the singer was like.

I wanted a copy of Panic, so I sat in for the next three nights for it to be played again. Amazing that it wasn't played again until Thursday night, and I taped it, although on medium wave, it would do until the record was released.

Time has changed many things, and Mr Morrissey is now a dick, and possibly a moaning racist one at that, and everything is literally at our fingertips.

The song itself was about someone in particular, afternoon DJ on Radio 1, Steve Wright, who after some dreadful news bulletin about some tragedy had made a flippant remark and played "I'm Your Man" by Wham.

News "got out" that the song was about Steve Wright, and the song became a hit, and Wright himself had to play it, knowing it was mocking him.

Hang the DJ
Hang the DJ