Savannah Pope makes “Panopticon” a song about the persistence of being watched, where another person’s judgment continues to shape the body long after the original experience has ended. The narrator knows that “these ribs are mine,” yet still feels herself being measured against someone else’s idea of what her body should be. The dressing room becomes a place of surveillance, where fitting into “the shape of your creation” matters more than belonging to herself.
The song makes that scrutiny increasingly physical. Ribs break, skin becomes something to consume, and the private dressing room is never truly private because the figure in the tower might still be watching. “Do you love me? I hate you / But tell me you approve” captures the contradiction at the center of that relationship: rejection and the need for approval exist at the same time. The question is not whether that person still has power, but why that power remains.
The most devastating shift comes when the narrator recognizes that the body being judged is still partly the body of a child. “I guess my body’s still thirteen” collapses past and present, turning the ghost into something more than a memory. She may have the space to make her own decisions now, but she is still racing against the version of herself that was shaped by someone else. “Panopticon” leaves that power unresolved because recognizing the cage is not the same as knowing how to leave it.
