Songfacts®:

• Frontman Brian Aubert told MTV News about this song: "For some reason, when we were mixing it, we kept playing around with this visual thesaurus that had a computer voice, and [bassist] Nikki [Monninger] and I kept typing up weird words, trying to find the dirtiest ones we could. So every time I listen to that song now, I just keep hearing this computer voice saying all these dirty words. Anyway, it's our dance song. We wrote it later on in the process - really close to the end, because we were seeing how the album was shaping up. I remember coming into the rehearsal space and just told everybody, 'OK, we're locking it down,' because we had a lot of songs to work with. And then the next day, I came back like, 'Hey, hey, wait, there's one more song to fit in.' And 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."
• This became the third independently-distributed song ever to reach the #1 position on the Hot Alternative Tracks (formerly Hot Modern Rock Tracks) chart. The other two to achieve this feat were The Offspring's 1994 debut hit "Come Out and Play" and Everlast's "What It's Like,"which had a nine-week run at the summit in 1998-9.
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney used this song during some of his campaign events without getting permission from the group. This prompted Silversun Pickups to get their attorney to issue a cease-and-desist. "We don't like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don't like the Romney campaign," said Aubert. "We're nice, approachable people. We won't bite. Unless you're Mitt Romney!"
  
  The Silversun Pickups frontman added that the band had been, "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."