Panama has made its way into English language music surprisingly often. Sometimes the country is the actual subject of the song, sometimes it represents travel, adventure or something exotic, and sometimes the connection is much stranger. In fact, one of the most famous songs ever to use the word “Panama” turns out not to be about Panama at all.
The obvious place to start is “Panama” by Van Halen, released in 1984 on the album 1984. It is by far the most famous English language song with Panama in its title, and the word is repeated throughout the chorus. The funny part is that the song isn't actually about the country of Panama. David Lee Roth explained that the song was inspired by a race car called the Panama Express that he had seen in Las Vegas. He also had a car called Panama. So despite one of the biggest rock bands in history repeatedly shouting the name of the country, the song has essentially nothing to do with Panama itself.
That makes the song even more interesting for people actually living in Panama. Imagine having perhaps the most famous English rock song with your country's name in it, only to discover that the songwriter wasn't singing about your country at all. The song became a major hit, reaching number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it remains one of Van Halen's signature songs.
There is another strange chapter to the Van Halen song's relationship with Panama. During the 1989 United States invasion of Panama, American forces famously played loud music outside the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, where Manuel Noriega had taken refuge. “Panama” by Van Halen was among the music associated with the psychological pressure campaign, creating one of the most bizarre real life connections between a rock song and the country whose name it carries.
Another song simply called “Panama” was recorded by Jani Lane and George Lynch in 2007. However, this isn't a new Panama themed composition. It is a cover of the Van Halen song, with Jani Lane providing the vocals and George Lynch on guitar. So if you come across another rock track called “Panama” on a music service, you may actually be hearing another version of the same famous Van Halen song rather than a separate song about Panama.
Panama also appears in songs that don't have the country's name in the title. One of the reasons the word shows up in English music is Panama's long association with travel, ships, the Canal and tropical adventure. For generations, Panama has represented a crossroads between oceans and continents, making the name useful to songwriters looking for an evocative place name.
The Panama Canal is particularly important in this regard. Even when an English language song isn't specifically about the country, references to the Canal can bring Panama into the lyrics. The Canal became one of the world's most famous engineering projects and turned Panama into a familiar name for English speaking audiences long before modern tourism made the country popular.
There is also an interesting distinction between songs that actually mention Panama the country and songs where “Panama” is simply a name. Van Halen is the perfect example. The word is unmistakable, but the meaning is completely different from what a listener in Panama might assume. This is something that happens surprisingly often with geographical names in music. A songwriter may use a place because the name sounds good, evokes a certain image or happens to be attached to a person, vehicle or fictional character.
For Panama, however, the Van Halen song is still an enormous cultural curiosity. The country has become permanently attached to one of the biggest guitar riffs of the 1980s. Even people who know very little about Panama may instantly recognize the shouted “Panama” from the song.
And there is something wonderfully appropriate about the fact that the song is about speed, heat, cars and adventure. Those themes may not have been intended to describe Panama, but they certainly give the word an energetic association. If you are sitting at a hostel in Panama, hearing that opening guitar riff suddenly feels a little different than it would anywhere else.
There are also numerous lesser known English language songs with Panama references, particularly in rock, country, folk, reggae and alternative music. Panama appears from time to time as a destination, a geographic reference, a character's location or part of a travel story. The difficulty is that there is no definitive list of every English song ever to mention the word. There are millions of recorded songs, and lyric databases are incomplete, particularly for older, independent and obscure recordings.
So if someone asks, “What is the famous English song about Panama?”, the answer is almost certainly Van Halen's “Panama.” But if they ask, “What English songs actually mention Panama?”, the list becomes much larger and much more interesting because Panama has been appearing in English language music for generations in all sorts of unexpected ways.
The funniest fact of all remains the simplest: the most famous song with Panama in the title isn't actually about Panama.
And that may be one of the strangest little pieces of Panama trivia you can tell a traveller while sitting around a bar in the country itself. Someone puts on Van Halen, the unmistakable guitar riff starts, David Lee Roth screams “Panama,” and everyone in the room suddenly has a connection to one of the world's most famous rock songs. Only later do they discover that Panama wasn't really what the song was about in the first place.