Song of the Day 12/28: Van Halen, “Panama”
Sclerotic bully Donald Trump has been talking tough about Panama, which like, sure, Grandpa. I’m not the only one whose mind went to this 1984 Van Halen classic, which has nothing to do with the country.
When a reporter accused frontman David Lee Roth of only writing lyrics about sex, drugs and fast cars, Roth realized he had never written a song about a car and set out to write one. The title supposedly came from a drag racer he saw in Las Vegas called the Panama Express, but it didn’t provide the revved engine heard in the song; that’s Eddie Van Halen’s mid-engine 1972 Lamborghini Miura S, backed up close enough to his home studio to mike it. It would be hard to find a more unreliable narrator than David Lee Roth, who also said the Panama Express was the name of his Opel Kadett, and told Howard Stern the song was about a stripper.
A follow-up to the band’s only No. 1 single, “Jump,” it reached No. 13 on the Hot 100. Most of the music video was shot at the late, unlamented Spectrum in Philadelphia. That shot of bassist Michael Anthony suspended on a cable marks the first appearance of his Jack Daniels bass.
Los Angeles synthpop duo the Bird and the Bee covered the song on their 2019 Van Halen tribute album.
