Panic! At The Disco: The Meaning

5. Camisado

Camisado is the name of a military technique: a surprise attack occurring at night, or at daybreak, when the enemy is supposed to be asleep.

Panic! guitarist Ryan Ross wrote this about his dad's battle with alcoholism. It gives an unforgiving view on Ross' father's inability to deal with his problems. The song depicts his anger through a very vivid representation of the worst aspects of a hospital. In A Rolling Stone Interview, when asked about his father's opinion on this track, Ross replied:

  "We haven't really talked about it [the album] directly. I'm sure that he knows they're about him, and he hasn't acted differently toward me, like he's mad or disappointed. He plays the CD all the time – it's kind of funny."

 Though the song regards his own personal family issues, Ross wants us to discover our own underlying message in relation to our own life: 

  "Some of the stuff [in the track] is really personal, and I felt like people didn't understand what they were singing. There's not much I can do about that. People take lines and they'll ask me, "What does this mean?" I don't really answer them – if it helps them relate to something, I don't want to take that away. "

  The sound keeps the rock/pop-punk that's so prevalent in A Fever You Can't Sweat Out.  

  The I.V. and your hospital bed
This was no accident
This was a therapeutic chain of events  

"I.V." is short for "intravenous," which literally means "within vein." These are used in a hospital when a substance needs to be inserted directly into a patient's vein.

Ryan's father kept using alcohol as a "therapeutic" escape, knowing that he would end up in the hospital. He found solace in these escape attempts and partook in them all too often. So this wasn't just a random occurrence, which is why they were a therapeutic chain of events; a series of actions led up to this.

The situation Ryan was in is unknown, but perhaps his father needed an I.V. to replenish blood after a terrible alcohol related accident.

  This is the scent of dead skin on a linoleum floor
This is the scent of quarantine wings in a hospital 

 This anaphoric  couplet paints the depressing scene of a hospital: dead people on the common linoleum floors. The creeping possibility of death embodies Ross's senses.

He doesn't literally smell the bodies, since it takes a few days after death  for a body to start emitting the smell exclusive to human carcasses .

Those exposed to a contagious disease yet have not necessarily become sick are put into quarantine  to be observed. Those who are possible carriers of it are also placed there. Quarantine is often confused with isolation, where those who have truly contracted it are placed.