There’s now a song about the sticky MacBook keyboard to get stuck in your head [Video]

Jonathan Mann of ‘Song a Day’ fame has a new hit on his hands. “I Am Pressing The Spacebar and Nothing Is Happening” is his latest jingle, and it’s a brilliant tune about keys on the MacBook keyboard having a tendency to get stuck when exposed to debris or crumbs or, well, in some cases, air.

The lyrics are simple but relatable for anyone who has used the super thin MacBook keyboard:

I’m pressing the space bar / I’m pressing the space bar / I’m pressing the space bar / I’m pressing the space bar / And nothing is happening / This computer is about a year old / And it was very expensive / I had been waiting to upgrade / For a long time / And now you’re telling me / It would need extensive / Surgery for a speck of dust / Lodged beneath the butterfly / I found your instructions / They were not helpful / I bought this can of air / I feel like an idiot

Jonathan Mann says the new song was inspired by Casey Johnston’s piece in The Outline about a piece of dust wrecking her MacBook Pro. For cleaning the MacBook keyboard, Apple provides very specific instructions that require holding your machine at a 75-degree angle and oddly rotating your MacBook in the air, although I’ve personally had mixed results with this exercise.

In my own house, I’ve seen the first-gen MacBook keyboard lose its paint job in under a year with light usage (and the one-year warranty didn’t cover the ‘cosmetic defect’), although this didn’t happen to my own MacBook used much more frequently. The key sticking issue, however, seems universal.

And that’s why there’s a song about it now. Everyone can relate.

Mann’s first big Apple hit, “The iPhone 4 Antenna Song”, eventually made it into an Apple keynote with Steve Jobs, although Apple has already tuned the MacBook keyboard differently with 2017 models using an added gasket that hopefully prevents stickiness.