ECHOES OFTHE PAST: THE FOLK TRADITION OF COVER SONGS — “PANIC” BY THE SMITHS
Part Eight: Welcome to Now; Plenty of Panic to Go Around...One could take the above title be a sort of nervous pun, a universal feeling but actually not, but certainly it has to be right? A nod to everyone, everywhere feeling everything; or just playfully necking nostalgia, and the fleeting feeling of losing your footing, when one thing comes to an end and for a moment there’s no next step— even if the odds were favored a path lay before, cold foot, frozen, not sure what it will feel like and there’s hesitation for a moment, and to take that step, to willfully blister, bloat with a fear like substance that sticks between our otherwise fluid limbs and ligaments,maneuvering whatever karate is required to stand in the now, and push into the unknown. Enjoying if we can any subtle uneasy feelings that some times accompany the end of an era— even these condensed progressions and projects. Such as for the reflectors and connectors, mind, moon, machine, a voice born somewhere in between narrating this experience, tip toeing toward this—the final article —would seemingly wrap the Echoes of the Past series. We’d leave behind the Blankets experience, draped over the couch in the house that nobody lives in, and it would find us just as such, having drifted. Certainly for a participant, author, story teller, researcher etc. it was a year of life, in no particular rhythm, no real deadlines, just an intention and a pace that would make sense like the rest of the moon & the mind, and the blankets album combined— it made sense just to do it, and then when the patterns aligned at the other side, well that’s just affirmation at it’s finest. Such as Us arriving in pefect time to celebrate the 1 year anniversary. Not surprisingly, I guess because it is the theme of how this particular project runs on seemingly happy accidents, when it’s just as much vapor being encouraged by whispers in the dark, as it is the most intricate sequence of cosmic coincidences necessary to bring these elements together— and to make these logically insubstantial appearing things that we cannot see enough outside of to fully grasp, add to our subtracting down to the minimal; perfect intention marries effort, and a generation of ideation actualized, coalescence and the endeavor that is the act of fading out of our own ego, is then each time, relief enough. For what? Perhaps to take failure as it seems, trophy of kings, and success as an eventually given in post-humous credit—or Ghost of Post production past, a latern in the ether like a light house to a lot ship, and even then, in the celebration the passage of a certain amount of time, the letters once reduced to punctuation alone announces a “p.s.”.
..That is to say there will be 1 more article after this, that digs into the 11th track of the album, the unknitted patch on the blanket; those paying closest attention might have noticed a song in the instagram promo reel that didn’t make it to the album.
Legend has it there was indeed some level panic in the control room when everything was supposed to be a little nearer the end, Josh Ramon remembers the panic of “Panic.” It was a track he thought would have come together more naturally, but none of the guests he’d envisioned came through, and his own meandering wasn’t getting him anywhere. “I tried some really long, noodley, sort of Midwest emo guitar versions, but it just wasn’t quite there for me,” he says. With mastering only a day away, he sent Ayla Winegar a sparse version. Her verdict was short: “More beats?”
“Right… right! That’s what I was thinking,” Ramon recalls. “We went back and forth several times over the course of a day. She even admitted later she was kind of panicking, haha, when I sent her what I had. By the end, I cut her off from giving more notes, because she still wanted to tweak one background vocal just ever so slightly. I don’t mean to say her opinion wasn’t valid, but there’s no right answer at a certain point, and you have to call it. I was ready to make the call. We could’ve done that for another day, adjusting layers and volumes and reverbs forever… and maybe it needs more beats still! You get the idea.”
When Panic first hit shelves in July 1986, it arrived as a standalone single from The Smiths — their first recording as a five-piece with new member Craig Gannon on rhythm guitar. It climbed to No. 11 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 7 in Ireland, cementing itself as one of the band’s most instantly recognizable tracks. Part of its punch came from the origin story: Morrissey and Johnny Marr were in a car, listening to a BBC Newsbeat bulletin on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, only to have it smash-cut into Wham!’s “I’m Your Man.” That tonal whiplash became fuel for one of the most pointed refrains of the decade — “Hang the blessed DJ.” As Marr later said in an interview, “What the fuck has this got to do with people’s lives?”
For Ramon, the irony wasn’t lost. He’d spent the past two years working weekends at a nightclub — a job that put him right in the center of DJ-driven nights. When it came time to celebrate the Blankets release, he hosted the party there with longtime friend DJ Duggernaut behind the decks.
“I’m not like ‘hang the DJ,’” he says, “but I do feel like a lot of the music doesn’t say much to me about my life— then there’s that other side of that perspective, and whether or not I feel the music speaks to me, what can I learn from it, and why am being exposed, or exposing myself to it, so regularly at this point in time. That’s part of why I found resonance in leaning into a synth-heavy, more lo-fi electronica approach — almost like a DJ remixing the song. There’s some irony to it.”
That pivot toward electronica happened late in the process, but it reframed the entire track. The Moon & The Mind’s version strips away the jangly guitars entirely, rebuilding Panic as a beat-forward, lo-fi electronic piece. Layers of airy synths and programmed percussion replace the original’s post-punk drive, giving the track a pulsing, hypnotic undercurrent. Whispered falsetto layers push an undercurrent of urgency, playing against the patient, more centered tone of the lower vocal. The contrast sharpens the tension, reframing Panic through a colder, more cinematic lens — the sound of the song as if it were already halfway through a remix, caught between the club floor and the radio dial.
In this form, Panic becomes less a rallying cry against hollow pop culture and more a meditation on repetition, rhythm, and resilience — fitting for a track that’s been reinterpreted, debated, and dissected for nearly four decades.
Playlist HighlightsThom Cooper – Emo-pop with a flair; reminiscent of when early 2000s pop/punk bands would strip it down acoustic, but with a little more flamboyance in the delivery.
Ryan Adams – Included purely on the merit of the cover itself; yes, the guy seems like a creep and was canceled for a reason, but credit where it’s due — he did, after all, make Taylor Swift listenable once upon a time, and his take here works.
The Bad Shepherds – Perhaps my favorite take, for the way it feels like a traditional Celtic folk song passed down through generations, reshaped and retold in the exact manner these Echoes from the Past articles explore. If you study the folk tradition of cover songs, there’s a vast, living process to be part of — and this version taps directly into that lineage.
References
Wikipedia contributors. (2024, July 21). Panic (The Smiths song). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_(The_Smiths_song)
York, A. (2024, July 21). Panic: Behind the Smiths song that took a swipe at 80s pop culture. This Is Dig!. https://www.thisisdig.com/feature/panic-the-smiths-song-story/
HeadStuff. (2019, April 29). One Track Minded | ‘Panic’ – It’s The Smiths. https://headstuff.org/entertainment/music/one-track-minded-panic-smiths/