Lock the Taskbar

Submission 14,993

Part of a series on Misheard Lyrics / Phonetic Translations / Buffalaxing. [View Related Entries]

About

Lock the Taskbar is a misheard lyric from The Clash's 1982 punk song "Rock the Casbah," relating to the option on computer operating systems to lock the taskbar in place. On the internet, the segment of the song which plays the phrase is often juxtapositioned with imagery of enabling the option for comedic effect.

Origin

"Rock the Casbah" was released in 1982 by The Clash. The song is about playing rock music in an Arab country despite an imposed ban on western music by the land's king. It would reach 8th on the US Billboard Top 100 upon release. As of April 20th, 2019, The official YouTube music video has over 54 million views.^[1]

The lyric in the song in which it is named after was jokingly interpreted as "Lock the Taskbar" as early as March of 2005, where it was written about in a blog post by Gareth Saunders in his personal website.^[2] This idea was fully realized on June 20th, 2005 when the first known instance of an audiovisual creation referencing the mondegreen was posted on YTMND by user Vergeh (thumbnail shown below). As of April 20th, 2019, the site has accumulated over 275,000 views.^[3]

Original Lyrics

The Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

Altered Lyrics

The Shareef don't like it
Lock the Taskbar
Lock the Taskbar

Spread

Despite originating on YTMND and becoming a minor fad there, the meme would also grow on YouTube. This started with a video slideshow uploaded by user djerrid on December 18th, 2006, featuring more lines intentionally misheard from the song. As of April 20th, 2019, this video accumulated almost 30,000 views (shown below, left).^[4] On March 3rd, 2007, YouTube user t33nid0l uploaded a derivative playing the original music video with clips of the taskbar being locked and unlocked incorporated within. As of April 20th, 2019, this video garnered over 100,000 views (shown below, right).^[5]

On January 22nd, 2014, YouTuber Vincent Rubinetti uploaded a short video featuring a toggle of the option along with certain visual effects and the matching song. This video would come to amass almost 3 million views as of April 20th, 2019 (shown below).^[6]

On March 16th, 2016, redditor u/ericnnn started a thread on the subreddit r/InternetIsBeautiful featuring a webpage which took the appearance of a Windows 7 desktop, where locking the taskbar would play the associated song.^[7] As of April 20th, 2019, this post gathered over 12,000 karma (84% upvoted) and almost 700 comments.^[8]