Silversun Pickups' Memo to Romney: Don't Panic

The rock band gets a cease and desist order to stop the Romney campaign from using their song. 

Since President Bill Clinton made Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" the theme song for his 1992 campaign, a rock-era theme song has become a standard if not a cliche of politics. The Mitt Romney campaign chose Silversun Pickups' "Panic Switch" to play at its campaign stops around the country. One problem: It never asked Silversun Pickups, who will play this year's Voodoo Experience. Today the band's attorney sent the campaign a cease and desist notice.

According singer and guitarist Brian Aubert, "We don't like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don't like the Romney campaign. We're nice, approachable people. We won't bite. Unless you're Mitt Romney! We were very close to just letting this go because the irony was too good. While he is inadvertently playing a song that describes his whole campaign, we doubt that 'Panic Switch' really sends the message he intends."

In 2009, Aubert explained the song to MTV News:

It's a very bizarre song. There were no verses in it. ... Hopefully it conveys a theme on the album, which is basically a nervous breakdown. It's pretty chaotic, and of all the songs on the record, that one represents that [theme] the best.

You can decide if the song's reference to a "pink slip" is simply an image, or if losing a job is the reason the singer loses it.